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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY 

Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 69-186, Pis. 16-19 June 27, 1908 



-^ V V 



THE RELIGION OF THE LUISENO INDIANS 
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



CONSTANCE GODDARD DUBOIS 



BERKELEY 

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 






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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

AMERrCAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY 

Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 69-186, Pis. 16-19 June 27, 1908 



THE RELIGION OF THE LUISENO INDIANS 
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 

BY 

CONSTANCE GODDAED DuBOIS. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Editor's Note 70 

Introduction _ 73 

Initiation Ceremonies 

The Toloache Ceremony 77 

Wanawut, the Sacred Net 85 

The Sand Painting _ 87 

The Ant Ordeal _ 91 

The Chungichnish Ceremony of Unish Matakish 92 

Wnkunish, the Girl's Ceremony 93 

Sacred Chungichnish Objects 97 

Mourning Ceremonies 

The Image Ceremony 100 

The Notish Ceremony 103 

Ceremonial Songs 105 

Myths 128 

Luiseno Creation, Third Version 128 

Luiseno Creation, Fourth Version 138 

Origin of the Notish Mourning Ceremony 148 

A Chungichnish Story 150 

Nahachish 151 

The Spirit Wife 153 

The Dance of the Spirits 154 

The Spring behind the Cemetery 155 

The Walking Tamyush 156 

How Coyote killed the Frog 156 

The Flood 157 



70 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

Traditional Knowledge 

Ancestral Landmarks and Descent of Songs 158 

Clans or Traditional Groups _ 160 

Star Lore and Calendar 162 

The Origin of Music 166 

Appendix I. By C. G. DuBois. Games, Arts, and Industries of the 

Dioguenos and Luisefios 167 

Appendix II. By A. L. Kroeber. Notes on the Luisenos 174 

EDITOR'S NOTE. 

I\Iiss Constance Goddard DuBois. the author of tlie present 
publication, is well known for her literary work dealing with 
Southern California. Of recent years she has earned distinction 
for her accounts of the myths and ceremonies of the Dieguefio 
Mission Indians of this region, which have been published in sev- 
eral anthropological journals. In the summer of 1906 I\Iiss Du- 
Bois spent some weeks in San Diego count}', in field .studies with 
the Luiseiio Indians. This work .she carried on under the Eth- 
nological and Archaeological Survey of California, which ]Mrs. 
Phoebe A. Hearst's generosity has made it possible for the De- 
partment of Anthropology of the University of California to 
conduct. In the present paper MLss DuBois reports the results 
of this study, adding certain information acquired during her 
previous visits to the Jlissiou Indians. 

Of the tribes formerly attached to the Franciscan missions of 
California the Luiseno and Dieguefio are the only ones to survive 
in any numbers. Inasmuch as they have been fully under Euro- 
pean influence for more than a hundred years, and as for nearly 
two generations they lived under a direct and enforced Christ- 
ian discipline, it is as surprising as it is gratifying that so 
much of their own inner life still remains as Miss DuBois has 
been able to show in this paper, and that at least the memory of 
their old life continues unaffected by civilization. But it need 
hardly be said that the best of this information is all contained 
in the minds of a few of the old men, and that with their passing 
it also will disappear forever. 

The Luiseiio and Dieguefio laugiiages are distinct, forming 
I)art respectively of the great Uto-Aztekan and Yuman families; 
but the two tribes are physically similar, and share in common 



^9"^] DuBois.Seligion of the Luiscrw Indians. 71 

the majority of their customs, arts, and beliefs. The terms 
Diegueno and Luiseiio originally referred to the Indians of San 
Diego and San Luis Eey missions, irrespective of their native 
affiliations; but they have come to be the customary names of 
tribes, or more exactly, of two groups of people each speaking a 
common dialect. 

Miss DuBois introduces her account of the religion of the 
Luiseiio with a discussion of the beliefs and practices centering 
about the divine being Chungichnish, the central figure in Luisefio 
religious worship. Under the name of Chinigchinich this charac- 
ter has furnished the title for the missionary Boscana's account of 
the closely related neighboring Indians of mission San Juan 
Capistrano, by far the most illuminating and valuable account 
of the Indians of California that the world owes to the mission 
period. Miss DuBois 's Luiseiio informants state that the Chu- 
ngichnish worship came to them from the coast and from the 
north; and that they in turn transmitted it to the Diegueno. 
There seems every reason for believing this statement; and 
although it is necessarily uncertain to what extent any uncor- 
roborated tradition of an uncivilized people can be accepted as 
historically true, the interest and value of such traditions is 
clearly as great to those who may be skeptically inclined on gen- 
eral grounds, as to those who, for good reasons in particular cases, 
take them more nearly at face value. 

Miss DuBois' account of LuLseiio symbolism, as embodied es- 
pecially in the wanawut or rope-flgure, and in the ground-paint- 
ing, is of special interest on account of the slight development of 
sjnnbolic religious expression heretofore discovered among the 
California Indians. It is significant that the Luiseiio ground- 
pamtings are of a comparatively simple geometrical character, 
recalling basketry patterns, and that they indicate the existence 
of objects rather than that they attempt to picture their form, or 
supposed appearance, even in a conventional style of representa- 
tion. It seems uncertain whether these paintings are to be re- 
garded as historically the result of the same cultural influences 
that gave a similar form of expression to the Pueblo and Navaho 
Indians. The geographically intervening Tuman tribes on the 
Colorado river show no trace of any equivalent practice. 



72 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. S 

Almost all the ceremonies of the Luiseiio are either commem- 
orative of the dead, or serve to initiate boys and girls into the 
condition of tribal and religious manhood and womanhood. The 
principal initiation of boys is the toloache ceremony, in which the 
central figure is the drinking of a stupefying decoction of jim- 
sonweed, Spanish toloache. 

The two new versions of the Luiseiio creation given by IMiss 
DuBois are fuller and more esoteric than any previously obtained 
among the Mission Indians. The succession of births or exist- 
ences, some of them psychic, evidences an unusual point of view 
for an American people, and is reminiscent of Oceanic and Asiatic 
ways of thought. Supplemented by Boscana 's two accounts of the 
creation at San Juan Capistrano, and by the Luiseiio and Diegue- 
no versions previously collected by Miss DuBois and others, these 
two valuable myths give an adequate conception of the Mission 
Indians' beliefs concerning the origin of things. 

In 1904 the editor had occasion to make a short stay among 
the Luiseno of Rincon, Pauma, and Pala, in the course of which 
certain information was acquired on the subjects here studied bj' 
Miss DuBois. While far less complete than the results of Miss 
DuBois, this information was independently gathered, and con- 
firms her conclusions on a number of points. It has therefore 
been added in an appendix. 

It is a source of regret that an expression of obligation in 
which Miss DuBois would join the editor can no longer be made. 
Mr. P. S. Sparkman of Valley Center, known for his long and 
patient study of the Luiseiio language, was kind enough to ex- 
amine and report on all Luiseiio terms occurring in this paper. 
By his permission his valuable renderings, translations, and com- 
ments on these terms have been given in footnotes signed S. in all 
cases where they add anything to ]\Iiss DuBois 's use of the words. 
Soon after the completion of this labor of love, Jlr. Sparkman 
met an untimely end. It is a source of satisfaction that his notes 
in this work may at least serve in some degree as a monument of 
his intelligent, careful, and persevering study of the Luiseno 

language. 

A. L. Kkoeber. 



1908] DuBois. — EeUgion of the Luisci'io Indians. 



THE RELIGION OF THE LUISENO INDIANS 
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In offering the results of several years research work among 
the Mission Indians, I have purposely avoided any attempt to 
give to the material collected either a technically scientific or a 
literary form ; my object being to put into the hands of those who 
may care to use them the documents of the case, as it were, as 
nearly at first hand as possible. 

The bare statement of a fact or rendering of a myth may be 
sufficient where all the premises are known ; but the Mission In- 
dians have been long unknown or misunderstood. Only frag- 
ments of the past remain, and in their elucidation the character 
of the narrator plays an important part. The personal form of 
narrative has therefore often been employed. This is purely 
a matter of convenience and should be accepted as such. The 
words of the interpreter are used whenever possible in literal 
form, his rendering being faithfully given. 

The obscurity of the subject has made it difficult to obtain a 
complete understanding of matters which in the old days were 
held too sacred for communication ; the veil of secrecy cast over 
the Chungichnish worship, as noted by Boscana, having persisted 
to the present day. That absolute correctness has been reached 
is not to be maintained ; but no pains have been spared in at- 
tempting this; and it is hoped that if mistakes exist, they may be 
corrected by later investigation. 

The two most important tribal remnants among the Mission 
Indians today are the Luisenos, whom I have studied chiefly at 
La Jolla and Potrero in the mountains,^ and the Diegueiios, at 
Mesa Grande, Campo, and Manzanita. 



1 These places must not be confounded with La Jolla on the coast, and 
Potrero near the Mexican line. 



74 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

Superficial observers, founding their opinion upon Baegert's 
unfriendly estimate of the Lower Californian Indians, and also 
upon the external conditions of the Mission Indians, the native 
simplicity and poverty of their life, have classed them extreme- 
ly low in the ethnic scale. It has even been stated that they were 
the lowest type of humanity on the face of the earth. 

Nothing could be more erroneous than these sweeping gen- 
eralities based upon the vaguest premises. Acquaintance with 
Luiseno mythology reveals a loftiness of conception, a power of 
definition and of abstract thought, which must give these people 
claim to a place among the dominant minds of the primitive race. 
On the other hand the Dieguenos show in their mj'ths a certain 
consistency in the narrative, a power of sustained invention, a 
dramatic instinct, as it were, which makes them supreme as story- 
tellers. The Cuyahomarr myth is an important survival of this 
type. 

It would be difficult to account for the blending of these two 
distinct mji;hologies into one religious ritual if historical evi- 
dence did not assist in explaining the fact. 

Fortunately it is possible to trace the origin and progress of 
an Indian propaganda unique in this, that it occurred compara- 
tively late in time, and was carried on under the very eyes of 
the Spanish and Mexican priests bj' their Christian converts, 
whose zeal for their ancient religion may have been increased by 
the example of missionarj' effort shown on their behalf bj- the 
white men. 

Lucario Cuevish, who will be referred to later on as one of 
the most important informants used, was bom at San Luis Key, 
and was still living there at the time of the Mexican-American 
war. He remembers that when the mountain people went down 
to the Mission from the Potrero and La JoUa region, being under 
the charge and surveillance of its priest, they were "given to- 
loaehe," that is, initiated according to ancient rite, by the Indians 
there.^ After the padres left, the mountain Indians stayed at the 
Mission for some time. Padre Antonio is the one he remembers 
as being in charge, and he allowed the Indians to keep up their 
religious dances. The padres never objected to this. The In- 



2 See the account of the Toloache ceremony given below. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseno Indians, 75 

dians who could not talk Spanish were allowed to pray in In- 
dian in the church; but they kept up the old dances outside.^ 

The Chungichnish belief, with its ceremonial and ritual, came 
originally from the north, say the Luiseiios, and was brought from 
there to the islands of Santa Catalina and San Clemente. From 
these islands, — both to be seen on a clear day from the mountains 
of the mainland, — it w-as brought to San Juan Capistrano ; from 
Capistrano to San Luis Key; and from there they brought the 
ceremonies and "gave toloache" in all the upland Luiseiio places, 
such as Rincon, Potrero, Tapiche, and La Jolla, and carried the 
ritual to the Diegueiios of Mesa Grande and Santa Ysabel.^ 

The Luisenos say that the Diegueiios of Mesa Grande origin- 
ally had no songs of their own for certain rituals, but that they 
sing the Luiseiio songs in such religious ceremonials as the eagle 
dance and the dance w'ith the eagle feather skirt. These were 
taught to them as part of the Chungichnish ceremonial, together 
with the new style of dancing which came to the mountains from 
the coast. On the other side of the Mission of San Juan Capis- 
trano there was a large Indian village, and from theer the Chu- 
ngichnish worship was brought to San Luis Rey. San Luis Rey 
taught Pala; Pala taught Pauma; Pauma taught Potrero; Po- 
trero gave it to La Jolla with the songs and the present manner 
of dancing. This new manner is full of gestures and violent 
motions, while the old style of dancing, still to be seen among the 
Diegueiios of Manzanita, was performed in a quiet and restrained 
manner, consisting simply in bending and swaying the body, and 
moving and stamping the feet in varied measure according to the 
rhythm of the songs. 

This took place perhaps a hundred and twenty yeai-s ago. 
The grandfather of the informant Salvador told Salvador's fath- 



3 This tolerance of the Catholic church makes it preeminent in mission 
work ; at the same time it is not likely that any of the fathers except Boscana 
fully realized the significance of the Indian dances. 

4 Venegas 's account of the Indians of Lower California contains much 
that might have been written about these Indians. Their religious cere- 
monials which are constantly misunderstood by the priests, the mode of liv- 
ing and manner of dress, the training of boys, the rules of the "hechiceros" 
(medicine-men), the sacred objects such as the feather band described be- 
low, the reverence paid to the raven, all this, — especially as relating to the 
most northern Indians of the peninsula ancl those of the southern Santa 
Barbara islands, — shows a close connection between Lower California and 
what is now Southern California. 



76 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Eihn. [Vol. 8 

er that when Potrero came to teach these ceremonies and to "grive 
toloaehe" to La JoUa, the toloache bowl would hold a quart or 
more, and all who drank became crazj- and nearly died ; and the 
La Jolla people were frightened, fearinp: their sons were going to 
die, and they nearly had a fight with the Potrero people. The 
La Jolla people in turn went later to Warner's Ranch and taught 
the Indians there, the so-called Cupenos,° these ceremonies and 
dances and gave them toloache; and then went further and 
taught the Mesa Grande Indians and those of Santa Ysabel, both 
Diegueiio. 

All this, then, represents a genuine niissionarj' movement in 
a primitive Indian religion. Its success was due to the fact that 
the religion of Chungichnish had everj' requisite of a conquering 
faith. It had a distinct and difficult rule of life requiring obed- 
ience, fasting, and self-sacrifice. 

It had the sanction of fear. No alien faith has ever been 
imposed without this; but where Christian and Mohammedan 
invoked hell-fire, the worshipper of Chungichnish invoked the 
avengers of the hill, the stinging weeds, the rattlesnake and the 
bear, who injure by bodily harm these disobedient to the faith. 

It had an imposing and picturesque ritual. And above all 
it had the seal of an inviolable secrecy, so alhiring at all times to 
the human mind. 

Boscana says of these Indians: "A veil is cast over all their 
religious observances, and the mystery with which they are per- 
formed seems to perpetuate respect for them, and to preserve an 
ascendancy over the people." How great were this respect and 
fear I know well from repeated experience. A century of al- 
legiance to the Catholic faith barely suffices to give the old men 
courage to reveal the sacred mysteries of the ancient religion.' 

The most important of these Chungichnish rites was the tolo- 
ache ceremony, as initiatory to the rest. 



6 The people of the village of Kupa or (iupa, speaking the Agua Caliente 
dialect, about equally distinct from Cahuilla and Luiseno. — Ed. 

One of my story-tellers was about to sing with great reluctance some 
songs descended to him from his father, when an apparition of Chaup or 
Takwish, the electric fire-ball or meteor, in broad daylight, so terrified him 
as an omen that he refused to reveal anything further. 



1908] DuBois. — Beligion of the Luisciio Indiaiis. 



INITIATION CEREMONIES. 
The Toloache Ceremony.' 

The jimson-weed, Datura meteloidcs, in Spanish toloache, 
Luiseiio naktamush,'^ * is one of the most imposing plants of 
Southern California. Its gigantic bluish-white bell-shaped flow- 
ers, opening towards evening and fading when the sun of the fol- 
lowing day becomes intense, contrasted with the dull green leaves, 
attract the most casual notice, as they occur in waste spaces in 
field and roadside, growing by hundreds where conditions favor 
their increase. The plant is remarkable in the extent of its dis- 
tribution. Undiscouraged by the intervening wastes of desert, it 
appears throughout Arizona as in California. 

The roots of the toloache contain a narcotic principle which 
has a marked effect on the mind; and the taking of this is the 
center of an important ceremony. It is fifty years or more since 
the toloache ritual has been celebrated by the Luiseiios; but for 
convenience the present tense is used. 

At the time of the Mani," the toloache ceremony, a big fire is 
lighted at the main place of gathering. They have two places, 
and the one where they actually give the toloache is at a distance 
from the other. The places are made ready in the day time, but 
the ceremony does not begin till evening. In the main place the 
sacred enclosure of brush, the wamkish, is built in a circle to 
about the height of a man. On the ground inside are placed the 
sacred ceremonial objects : the tamyush or sacred stone toloache 
bowls, large and small, — all but one which is to be used in the 
other place in drinking the toloache; feather head-dresses and 
eagle-feather skirts ; and the paviut, the sacred sticks with flint in 
the end. 



' Based on an account given by the Luiseno informant Lucario Cuevisli. 

71 Vowels tiave the continental sounds, ai, au, a, and ii being as in German. 
The letter x represents the sound of German ch or Sjianish j. V, being 
bilabial in Luiseiio, is much more like w than in English. — Ed. 

s Naktomush. — S. 

» Mani or pa'nish mani. — S. 



78 University of California Publicatio7ts in Am. Arch, and Eihn. [Vol. 8 

The tamyush, which since the last celebration of the eeroinony 
have been buried in the prround, in a place known only to the 
chief, are taken out in good time and freshly painted so that they 
look nice. They are painted red, white, and black. Of the sacred 
ceremonial objects the tukmuP" is not in the main enclosure but 
at the other place. The tukmul is a flat winnowing basket sacred 
to the Chungichnish rites. It belongs to the men, that is, is pos- 
sessed by every initiate, and during every ceremony is placed on 
the ground containing grain, the sacred stone pipes, or other ob- 
jects. 

When it grows dark the people gather at the main place. The 
chief has charge of the religious conduct of the ceremony ; but to 
see to the correct performance of everj- part of it during the four 
or five days of its continuance, two officers, Paha," are selected, 
with varied functions. 

They must go around to the different houses to collect the 
candidates for the Mani, carrying some of the little boj'S who may 
be found asleep. One Paha is detailed to supervise the main 
place ; the other, the place for drinking the toloacho. By a well 
understood law no one is allowed to run around or make any 
noise. The Paha must be a hechicero, or shaman, of repute ; and 
he could tell by looking at the mother of a boy whether she had 
been doing wrong in any way. No woman could be admitted to 
the ceremony who was unclean, unchaste, or menstruating. 

It is dark in the place where they take toloache. The large 
tamyush selected for the purpose is placed on the ground before 
the chief. It contains the root, previously prepared and dried, 
perhaps a year before.'- The chief pounds the dry scraped bark 
with the stone mano (muller or pestle) to the accompaniment of 
a curious recitative, not a song: "Chanyoko, yoko," while the 
boys stand waiting in the darkness. The powder is then placed 
in a small twined sifting ba.sket" and sifted again into the tam- 



1" Tukmul is given by Boscana as tucmel. — Tukmal. — S. 
'1 Paha ', manager of morahash dance and of mani. — S. 

12 Among the Diegucfios the .iuice is said to be expressed from the fresh 
root and mixed with wafer. Only a root growing towards the north is 
selected. The song used in this connection in Dicgueiio begins: "Choki, 
choki. ' ' 

13 University of California, Department of Anthropology, Museum num- 
ber 110619. 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Luisefw Indians. 79 

yush, which is filled with water. The Paha goes about whisper- 
ing: "Keep quiet all of you. Do not talk. Everyone keep 
quiet." 

The chief superintends the drinking, and as the candidates 
kneel in turn before the big tamyush to drink out of it, he liokLs 
the head of each with the palm of his hand under the forehead, 
and raises it when they have drunk a sufficient quantity of the 
liquid, watching to see that they do not drink too much. They 
drink from the tamyush in which the toloaehe was mixed. 

They give the toloaehe to the boys in the dark ; and while it is 
being administered, the Paha goes over to the main place three 
times in succession, and the third time tells them to get ready, for 
Mani is coming. He sings a curious recitative. 

The men and boys in this ceremony do not wear clothes. Be- 
fore they start, each man takes charge of one of the boys who 
have partaken of the drink, and they stand and get ready. Now 
begins the marching song or recitative as they march to the main 
place, taking the boys along. The words of this recitative are : 
"Tamyiish noya kwoya, Tamyush walks by twisting.'"" In the 
early daj^s this tamyush, finely painted, out of which they drank 
toloaehe, when it was time to march to the main place, would walk 
along by itself. This was done with a twisting motion from side 
to side, — as a heavy barrel is moved. 

Tukmul, the sacred winnowing basket,^'' would do the same 
thing. He would run by himself to the main place ; so would the 
other sacred basket, piavala,^" a small basket in the shape of an 
olla. These three, tamyiish, tukmul, and piyevala. would have to 
stop three times on their way to the main place. 

The dancers crawled in on their hands and knees, making the 
noises of birds and animals. They had some secrets about this, 
shamanistic power, and could talk in the language of these birds 



1* University of California, Department of Anthropology, phonograph 
record 394. — Tamyush ngoxya (x German ch) kwoya, tamyush walked twist- 
ing. — S. — Dr. R. B. Dixon, in the Northern Maidii, Bulletin American Mu- 
seum of Natural History, XVII, 137, 1905, says that the Shasta Indians of 
Northern California believe that certain mortars move of themselves, and 
describes their ceremonial use by the Maidu. — Ed. 

15 University of California, Department of Anthropology, Museum num- 
ber 1-10620. 

lepeyevmal; peyevla, a large storage basket. — S. 



80 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. S 

and animals, hawks and owLs, and ravens and weasels. One 
could hear this but could see nothing.*' 

Then they march around the fire, and dance singing the tolo- 
ache song. The boys soon grow dizzj' and fall down, and they 
carry them to the other place and leave them there, under the 
charge of some of the old people, until the toloaehe intoxication 
wears oflf. 

After this come the dances and the Chungichnish songs, and 
sometimes new songs are composed at this time. Some of the old 
men have composed them to teach to the boys, and they dance all 
night long. At daylight they sing the song: "Tukaina woni- 
pa,"" which means to go off; and they march to the other place 
w^here they took toloaehe, where they remain during the day. 

The boj's cannot eat anything. The Paha watches to see that 
they do not eat more than two or three spoonfuls at most; but 
the others eat. 

When night comes each man takes one of the boys to the main 
place; and before all the people these old men do magic tricks 
(PI. 1) to teach the boys how to perform them. In the old days 
when they took Mani these people could do anything. They 



1" Lucario knows nothing about personal ' ' totem animals ' ' or guardian 
spirits with which this part of the ceremony was probably connected. Bos- 
cana's account of the connection of the guardian spirit animal with the 
toloaehe ceremony is so dear to the modern reader of his work as to be 
undoubtedly founded on fact; and at Mesa Grande it was possible to extract 
enough from some of the old men to be sure that the personal totem had 
long ago existed among the Diegueno Indians. Boscana says: "At the age 
of six, or seven years, they gave them a kind of god, as protector; an ani- 
mal, in whom they were to place entire confidence, who could defend them 

from all dangers, particularly those in war against their enemies 

That they might know the class of animal, which the God, Chinigchinich, had 
selected for their particular veneration, a kind of drink was administered to 
them, made from a plant called Pibat, [i.e., tobacco] which was reduced to 
powder, and mixed with other intoxicating ingreilients. Soon after taking 
this preparation they became insensible, and for three days were deprived of 
any sustenance whatever. During this period they were attended by some 
old men or women, who were continually exhorting them to be on the alert, 
not to sleep for fear the coyote, the bear, the crow, or the rattlesnake might 
come; to observe if it were furious or gentle, and to inquire of the first that 
should come, what were its desires. The poor Indian thus intoxicated, with- 
out food or drink, suffering under delirium, beheld all kinds of visions; and 
when he made known that he had seen any particular being, who explained 
the observances required of him, then they gave him to eat and drink, and 
made a grand feast; at the same time advising him to be particular in obey- 
ing the commands of the mysterious apparition." (Op. cit., 270-1). 

18 Tekaia wenepa: said to refer to the placing of the bones of Ouiot in a 
receptacle and pouring them into a hole in the ground. — S. 



1908] ThiBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseno Indians. 81 

could put the feather head-dresses in the fire, and they would not 
be burned ; and they could make the raven talk and everj-thing 
was done as he said. They were so full of Chungichnish. 

Not so very long ago, a shaman cut his tongue off, blood ran 
all over his breast, and he held it out so everyone could see. Then 
he put it back and it grew together again. This was while the 
Indians all lived where Trujillo's land is now. This spot was a 
prehistoric Indian village site, the author's camping place at Po- 
trero. 

In the same place at this time a shaman stood up and another 
one shot him with bow and arrow. The arrow went deep into his 
breast, and he vomited blood and fell down apparently dead. 
The people all began to cry when they saw him .shot: but the 
second shaman pulled the arrow out, doctored him and blew on 
him, and he got up perfectly well and went on dancing. 

One man named Turiyo threw his feather head-dress on the 
big fire that was burning. One could smell the feathers burn 
and everyone saw it. He walked around and began looking about 
and there was the same feather head-dress on the ground. 

They would do these things when they got ready to put the 
fire out, singing the Chungichnish songs and dancing. They 
wore no clothes but the feather head-dresses and breech-cloths, 
but they were painted with white clay and black charcoal on their 
backs to protect them from the heat. 

They put the fire out by witchcraft. They would have a very 
big fire, "as big as a house," and when they got readj' to put it 
out several of the old men would jump right into the middle of 
the fire and stand there several minutes. You could smell the 
feathers burn and know that they were burning, but they would 
jump out again unhurt. 

This was not so very long ago. Everyone knows about it. 
These were the things they taught the boys to do. 

The Paha would superintend the putting out of the fire as he 
did everything else, calling out: "Come up to the fire. Don't 
be afraid. Don't shirk." 

They put the fire out by pulling the burning logs out and 
stamping on them and putting them out by witchcraft. The 
chief would not let anyone come near with water, as the hot steam 



82 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

would burn. They would tramp with hands and feet, and had 
the Chungichnish sticlis. In the earlj- days they would not feel 
fire." 

It is the men of the same village where the boys live who give 
them toloache ; but the next day, perhaps, the people from another 
village will come; and their chief men will take the boys and 
teach them their ways and ceremonies, and dance all night long. 
The men that take the boj's to instruct them wiU talk to them and 
tell them how thej' must behave. These men bring the dancing 
feathers, tukmul, and other objects belonging to Chungichnish. 
During the time they are teaching the boys and giving them 
presents of the feathers and objects, the fathers and mothers of 
the boys give back the same value in baskets and other possessions. 

Then the instructors dress the boys in the feathers, paint them 
all over, give them the wonder-working sticks, and go home. 

Next daj' the men of another village come and do the same 
thing, and so on for four or five days, different parties coming 
and going. 

The boy has to fast from salt and meat for two or three weeks. 

Then they use Wanawut, and the boys all jump. (The ac- 
count of the rope ceremony is given below). If anyone should 
fail to do it rightly he would not live long. When he comes 
through this he is free. He joins Chungichnish. (The narrator 
stood and reverently pointed upward. "The spirit is always 
sent up.") They have Wanawut for long life, and the boys nuist 
believe in it, and obey the rules. 

After the fasting is over, thej' make the sand-painting. (The 
description of this is also given below.) The instruction is then 
given in the proper rule of life for the initiate, the Chungichnish 
rule of life : 

No one must eat immediately after rising. They must wait 
so long that their spirit may return to them from sleep, and then 
they can eat. In the same way they must not eat immediately 
upon their return from a journey among the hills. They must 



ii> The Dieguefios of Mesa Gramle had a very wonderful stone, which was 
used in this ceremony of putting out the fire in the toloache fiesta. It was 
worn by the chief about his nock, and was placed upon the fire at the proper 
time to put it out b}' magic power. It was also used when red hot by the 
medicine men among their other deeds of wonder. They would hold it in 
their hands, lick it with the tongue, and so on. 



1908] DuBois. — EeUgion of the Luiseuo Indians. 83 

wait for tlieir spirit to return to them. They must not eat be- 
fore the old people have eaten, and no young person can eat the 
last of the seed or grain, the harvest of the previous year. This 
must be kept for the old. A boy may eat deer's meat when he 
has grown to the height of his father's shoulder and not before. 
They must eat sparingly and observe all these rules so that they 
will live long and have sons and grandsons to perform the cere- 
monies at their death and to burn their bodies. In the old days 
they lived to be so old that they became like little babies again, 
and would lie down and die of old age. Now they eat too much, 
and they have no rules for eating, and they die young. 

They must be kind to the old and not turn their back upon a 
stranger when he comes to their house. They mu.st not whip 
their children, for the spirits will be about and will steal their 
spirits away so that the children will die. 

A bath must be taken every morning. 

There were many other rules pertaining to the rites and cere- 
monies and the requirement of secrecy. 

If any of the rules were disobeyed, Chungiehnish would send 
the bear, mountain lion, or rattlesnake to bite, and .stinging weeds 
to injure the transgressor. Sickness would come upon him. The 
earth M'ould hear, and the sun would spy out the guilty by day 
and the moon by night. 

Sage seed ground and mixed with salt is made into a lump, 
and with this the chief touches the forehead, shoulders, breast, 
knees, and feet of each boy in turn, telling him that whenever 
the sun rises he must make the sort of invocation used at this time, 
sending his spirit towards it, — in an indescribable sound, for 
which we have no word. Three times this is done, — Ugh-ugh- 
ha-a-a. 

The lump of sage-seed and salt is then put into the mouth of 
the candidate, who bends over the sand-painting, kneeling before 
it with arms extended one on each side of it. He spits the lump 
into the central hole, which is then carefully covered by the old 
men, who obliterate the sand-painting by pushing it from the 
circumference towards the center. ( See again the special account 
of the sand-painting below.) 



84 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. S 

This ends the first part of the toloache ceremony. It is prob- 
able that a race was made by the boys and that a rock was painted 
as is described in the account of the ant-ordeal, and in the girls' 
ceremony ; but my authorities did not mention this here. 

The chief has to take care of those who are under him, and he 
must save all he can in food and valuables and plan to finish the 
whole ceremony, notifying his people when it is time to burn the 
sacred enclosure, which is done four or five weeks later to end the 
Mani. 

The sacred enclosure (Luiseiio, wamkish or hotahish;-" Span- 
ish, casa grande) is made in a circular form of willow and other 
brush. The ceremony of burning it is performed in the day time. 
First the Paha takes the food collected by the chief and distrib- 
utes it among the dift'erent houses to be prepared for eating; then 
when all is ready he brings it to the main place, where they have 
a feast. 

Instead of burning the whole of the sacred enclosure, a part 
of the brush is taken from it and this is burned while they dance 
and sing the appropriate songs. 

This ends the ceremony of Mani which came to the mountaio 
people from San Luis Key. Thej' do not have it regularly, per- 
haps every two or three years. During the march which ends 
the ceremony the mothers of the initiated boys throw away baskets 
and other valuables among the guests. 

The following comments on the toloache fiesta are by Salvador 
Cuevas: Mani was a training for boys. In it they were told 
how to act in all ways, to old people, to be kind to strangers, not 
to eat too much, so that they could run miles and miles, and could 
live long. They were instructed how to dance and how to per- 
form the ceremonies. 

Part of the ceremony Salvador hesitated to describe as it was 
too sacred to be told ; but having confidence in me he was willing 
to do so if I would promise not to repeat it to the Indians. He 
was willing that I should give it to the white people. 



-0 Vanqucch as given by Boscana, pronounced Vankesh, is closely allied 
to Luiseiio wanikisb, v and w being more nearly alike than in English. The 
Diegueno name is awa-iku. 

Hotahish, brush enclosure at mani; wamkish, the space enclosed. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Liiiseiio Indians. 



■SVANAWUT, THE SACRED NET. 

"Wanawut. or Wanal Wanawiit,-^ one of the First People bom 
of the Earth-mother (tig. 1), is made of millnveed twine in the 
woven meshes of which three round tlat stones, brought from the 
seashore, are inserted at intervals in a straight line. This was 
fastened with stakes in place in the bottom of a trench, and the 
men who laid it down must stand facing the north, since those 
who laid the dead Ouiot-- down did so facing in that direction. 




o o 



Fig. 1. — Wanawut as sketched by Salvador Cuevas. 

Three daj's after the taking of the toloache the trench was 
dug and wanawut placed in it. The trench was about five" feet 
long, fifteen inches wide, and twenty-eight inches or so in depth. 

According to Salvador Cuevas, a cross trench was dug to ac- 
commodate the arms of the figure which would thus be as long as 
the trench. According to Albanas, there was only one lengthwise 
trench, the figure, slightly different in shape, being small enough 
to be included within it. The latter is possibly the more modern 
form. 

"When the wanawut is laid down, the chief explains the sacred 
symbol and gives instruction to the boys in the things pertaining 



21 Wanawut, object of twine used at puberty ceremony. Three stones 
were employed with it, but wanawut means the twine only. Wanal, a long 
net for rabbit drives; a seine for sea-fishing. — S. 

22 See the creation myths given below. 



86 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [A''oI. 8 

to the spirit. The boys, crouching with feet placed one on top of 
the other, spring from one of the stones to the other, holding and 
swinging by the sides of the trench and so out. If they are very 
small they are assisted in this by their "sponsors." The mothers 
stand by anxiously awaiting the result, for if a boy should slip 
and fall it would be a sign that he was not to live long. 

Albaiias explains more fully the symbolic meaning of this 
figure : 

Wanawut is the symbol of the ]\Iilky Way, the Spirit to whom 
our spirits go when they die. Since the spirit cannot be seen, 
some .sjinbol of it is required for the instruction of the candidates. 
This figure is shown to them and explained. Piwish, the Milky 
Way, was put up where he is as a sign that we are only going to 
live here for a little while. Death came from Ouiot; but when 
we die our spirit will be sent to Piwish Ahuta. This rises with 
Niikiilish, Antares. The sjTnbol wanawut was to remind the boys 
of the spirit. "This will hurt you if you do not obey — the cere- 
monial law." The main wanawut would be in the sky. but we do 
not see it. We send our spirits to it in breathing, groaning in- 
vocation. 

The main idea connected with this object in regard to the 
spirits of the dead seems to be the wish to free them from the 
earth, to keep them from returning to it; to "tie" them to the 
four quarters of the sky ; to send them to the Milljy Way. 

The Milky Way glows brilliantly in the clear atmosphere of 
Southern California. It is there a much more imposing spectacle 
than it ever appears to the dwellers in the east. The ethereal 
quality of it, its vague outline and uncertain luminosity, make it 
easily an object of veneration. 

Wanal wanawut is a double term, wanal meaning an object of 
string for ordinary use, and wanawut the sacred symbol made of 
string to which the tenn for spirit is applied because it sjnnbolizes 
the spirit. Whether the idea of "tying" the spirit to the four 
quarters of the skj', especially the sacred north, is the reason for 
this sj'mbol formed of elaborately woven twine ; whether the shape 
of the wanawut is in some resemblance to the human form, or to 
a portion of the Jlilky Way ; whether the placing it in the trench 
signifit's the depositing of the ashes in the grave: what the three 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 87 

stones mean ; whether the 3111111)111^ of the boys from stoxie to stone 
and out means the escape of the spirit from the gi-ave ; — all these 
and other suggestions of the same sort must be left to speculation 
as I have had no definite explanation of them. 

It is probable that little is remembered of the instruction in 
the things of the spirit which was given to the candidate in the 
toloache ceremony ; but it is certain that in the old days a definite 
and well understood system of religious thought existed among 
those who alone were entrusted with the complete knowledge of 
the sacred mysteries. 

THE SAND PAINTING. 

The sand-painting was first done by Tukwut, Iswut, and Mes- 
mal Awawit," Mountain Lion, "Wolf, and Sea Fog. They were 
people and great medicine men, and were the first to institute 
Mani. It was after Oviiot died that they made all the rituals and 
ceremonies. 

The sand-painting was used in four ceremonies : Mani, the 
toloache ritual; Wukunish, the girl's ceremony; the ant-ordeal; 
and in Unish Matakish,"* the ceremony for burying the feathers 
of a toloache initiate when he died.-^ 

Since my authorities differed concerning it, it was with diffi- 
culty that I obtained anj'thing like a complete understanding of 
the sand-painting; and it was not until all my notes were coUated 
and compared that I decided that the main reason for these dif- 
ferences was the fact that some of the old men were describing 
one form of sand-painting and some another; that those were 
wrong who maintained that the girls' and boys' sand-paintings 
were alike; that there were in fact two forms of which one only 
was distinctly remembered by most of them. 

The only alternative is to imagine that different practices pre- 
vailed in this matter in the old days. 

As all were agreed concerning the sand-painting used in the 
girls' ceremony, this will be first described. 



23 Mesmal, mist, fog; awa'vit, fog. — 8. 

24 Yunish, burying of an initiate's ceremonial feathers; matakish, grind- 
ing stone. — S. 

25 It will be seen that these are all connected with the idea of initiation. 
—Ed. 



88 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

A central hole is dug. and the sand removed from it is taken 
to make a heaped-up circle about two feet in diameter, the width 
of the heaped-np border being about three or four inches. 

This circle is then painted by sprinkling it with different 
colored sands or ground paint and powdered charcoal. The outer 
edge is made white, the middle red, the inner edge black. 

The central hole is defined in the same way, white oiitei-most, 
red in the center, black nearest the hole. 

Three concentric circular rows of nine points each'-" are made 
pointing outwards from the central hole; the outermost row of 
points are white, the next circle of points red, those nearest the 
hole black. 

A sand-painting was made for the author, which is shown in 
plate 2. For convenience in photographing it was done chiefly 
in white. The outer enclosing circle, however, shows the red and 
black. 

According to one authority the three circles forming the cir- 
cumference mean, the white outer one the Milky Way; the red 
central one, tukmit,-^ the sky; the black inner one, chum kwina- 
mul,-' our spirit. According to another, the outer circle of white 
is the Milky "Waj^; the middle of red, chum towi-' our spirit; the 
inner of black, kwinamish,-^ the spirit. Another gives these as 
chum towi, chum wanamul, chum kwinamul, all meaning our 
spirit; the central one referring to the Milky Way, which he 
places in that position, making the white circle central and up- 
permost. Wanamul seems to include the stem which is found in 
wanawut, as if spirit and Milkj' Way were synonymous."' 

The sand-painting represents the world. The slvy bending 
above is supposed to rest upon the circle of the Milky Way. The 
whole of the visible universe is thus represented. 



28 The design may also be imagined as consisting of nine pointed figures 
of the form of a Gothic arch, intersecting, and surrounding the central hole. 
—Ed. 

2" Tukomit, night, also the first 'man' made by Kyuvish Ataxvish (x 
German ch); sky, tupash; Towish, spirit, corpse, cham-towi, our spirit. 
Cham-kwinamo, our spirit, root, or origin, from kwinamush, which really 
means root, and is used in speaking of the root of a plant or the origin of a 
person. — S. 

28 To most California Indians the Milky Way is the spirits' or ghosts' 
road.— Ed. 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the Luiseho Indians. 89 

All the authorities but one maintain that there is a "door" to 
the north to allow the escape of the spirit. The informant who 
denies this has either forgotten, or he belongs to a line of descent, 
a ' clan, ' in which the ceremony was modified. 

The gate towards the north is shown in the photograph. The 
Earth-mother lies with her feet to the north.-" Those who laid 
Ouiot on the funeral pile stood facing that way. All ceremonies 
and invocations are performed facing the north. 

In the outer circle of points or diamond-shaped divisions, in 
the second one from the door, is a small circle of sand. This rep- 
resents the sea, which according to one version of the creation 
myth, gives us the breath of life which fills our lungs. 

In the next division is a small heap of sand; this is kawima 
hulwul. that is. the little hill of hulwul,'" the sacred Chungichnish 
plant that grows on the hills, which puni.shes the transgressor; 
how, it is not known. 

In the sixth di\-ision, counting in the same direction, is a larger 
hill combining the meaning of four Chungichnish avengers : so- 
wut, hunwut, tukwut. i.swut. that is, rattlesnake, bear, mountain 
lion, wolf. 

In the middle circle of points, in the fourth division, there is 
another small heap of sand. This means mukil, boil or abscess, 
which is a Chungichnish avenger and sent to punish those who 
do not fast for the appointed time, or who secretly steal meat or 
salt during the fast. 

The name of the sand-painting is eskanish tarohayish, a double 
name. Eskanish means any kind of images or figures, and after 
the habit of Luiseiio double terms is qualified, as it were, by taro- 
hayish which means this particular kind of image. It is also 
called nahish.^^ 

Into the central hole of the sand-painting, the girls spit the 
lump of sage seed and salt at the conclusion of the ceremony. 
In this hole also are buried the feathers of the toloache initiate 



29 Cf. Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 312, 1906. 

30 Kawimal hulval, hulval hill ; hulval, Artemisia calif ornica. — S. 

31 Mr. Sparkman gives the same interpretation of eskanish and taroha- 
yish. For nahish he has nawish, marking, writing, painting, from the verb 
nawi. 



90 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

after his death. The hole in this case must be made larger. In 
the girls' sand-painting the hole is about four inches in diameter. 
Salvador is the only one who gives a different sand-painting 
for the boys' ceremony (fig. 2) ; the others tliink it differed only 
in being of a larger size. 




Fig. 2. — Sand-painting for boys' initiation as sketched 
by Salvador Cuevas. 

Salvador is proliably correct. lie drew both for me on pieces 
of paper and explained them as well as he could. The circle in 
the boys' sand-painting is about as large as a wagon wheel, and is 
divided in quarters, three of which are marked off by lines into 
nine divisions each ; the fourth being empty except for the figure 
of a rattlesnake and three round figures meaning the flat baskets, 
tukmul, which belong to the men and are sacred to Chungichnish, 
being placed on the ground in everj- ceremonial, containing a lit- 
tle grain. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Lniseno Indians. 91 

The divisions of this painting are said to be in various colors, 
made with powdered yellow bark, white and red elaj' , and other 
paints, yellow, green, white, blue, and red. 

This painting represents the earth, the colors symbolizing 
flowers, fields, and trees. 

THE AXT ORDE.iL. 

Another almost prehistoric ceremony was that of Anut,'^ 
called Antish''^ or Tivihayish, used as a sort of supplement to 
the toloaehe initiation, as an education in courage, skill, and 
quickness for young men. It has been so long discontinued that 
it is impossible to obtain a complete description of it. It was not 
performed every year. Sometimes there were many candidates, 
sometimes very few. 

The sand-painting was used in this ceremony, which is one of 
the four in which it was employed. The first night of the ritiial 
they did not sing or dance; but they had something they whistled 
with all night long. 

The chief would select the young men when they were old 
enough to endure the ordeal. It was done secretly in a place 
apart. A certain cone-shaped hill with rocks on top was one of 
the places where they used to perform it. 

Early in the morning before dawn the j'outlis would be taken 
into the house or sacred enclosure and given hot water to drink. 

The chief had a basket in which he collected ants ; and one by 
one the candidates were taken to the place prepared and made to 
lie down while the ants were shaken out of the basket and over 
their naked bodies with a certain sort of plant. To this a song 
was sung : ' ' Toma no kwato. ' ' 

After a time the ants were whipped from the body with net- 
tles. When all was over, the sand-painting was made as in the 
toloaehe fiesta. The lump of sage seed and salt was also iised in 
the same way. This implies that there had been a previous period 
of fasting. Invocation was made three times by the indescribable 



32 Anut, species of large red ant, regarding whicli there are songs. — S. 

33 Antish, tlie action of lying on an ant hill and permitting one 's self to 
be stung, which was thought to be beneficial; anti, verb, antish, action of 
same. — S. 



92 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

solemn groans and gestures ; then the lump of sage-seed and salt 
was placed in the mouth of the candidate and spit into the central 
hole of the sand-painting. 

A race was then made bj' the candidates, probably similar to 
the races made at the time of new moon ; and the winner of the 
race painted the rock in the designated place, with red and black 
paint. 

After this came the dances and songs of Anut, four or five of 
which are remembered, sung to the accompaniment of the ringing 
stones. 

A ceremony for tattooing was somewhat similar, but no defin- 
ite account has been obtained of it ; and the songs belonging to it 
have been forgotten. They had a ceremony for it and would lay 
the person down in a certain place. Those who performed the 
tattooing were obliged to fast previously for a certain length of 
time. 

Both men and women were tattooed. One of the old chiefs 
had a mark on his left wrist ; another of the old men had the 
tattooing on his nose. The meaning of the marks could not be 
discovered. 

THE CnUNGICHNISH CEREMONY OP UNISH MATAKISH. 

The sand-painting was used also in the ceremony of Unish 
Matakish,'" the burying of the feathers of a Chungic-hnish init- 
iate. 

Wlien a man died who had drunk toloache in his youth, if he 
still had in his possession the feather head-dress, sacred stick, 
paviut, and other ceremonial implements, the chief of his "party" 
or clan would go and get these objects and bury them. 

I\Iany of the features of the toloache fiesta were repeated. 

The chief calls the people, and gets out the tamyush and all 
the sacred objects. He cleans the tamyush — they are buried in 
the ground when not in use — and paints them and sets them all 
together. They have two places, as in the ilani. In one place 
they prepare these things ; and in the other they make the sand- 
painting. This has a gap to the north, and the rattlesnake is 



3< Yunish, burying of an initiate's ceremonial feathers; matakish, grind- 
ing stone. — S. 



1908] DxiBois. — Heligion of the Ltnseno Indians. 93 

painted near the gap. Tukmul, the winnowing basket, is repre- 
sented in the painting, too. It is Chungichnish.^" 

After everything is ready, the Paha calls out three times ; and 
they come marching and singing a solemn recitative. The chief 
who made the sand-painting takes the feather head-dress, and the 
other things to be buried, in his hand, and goes ahead of the 
others as they sing the Chungiehnish songs which mention the 
stones and sacred objects, always ending with tamyush. 

They sing as they reach the main place where the sand-paint- 
ing is. The feathers and objects are placed in the central hole 
of the painting, and are buried by pushing the sand slowly for- 
ward, obliterating the painting and filling the hole at the same 
time, to the accompaniment of a recitative invocation. 

The Chungiehnish songs, sung at this ceremony, are not sub- 
ject to the law of clan ownership, but may be sung by all, as they 
do not belong to any one family or party. No one composed 
them. They were made and given by Chungiehnish himself. 

AVUKUNISH, THE GIRLS ' CEREMONY. 

The girls' ceremony, Wukuuish,'"' was the initiatory ceremony 
made for the girl upon her entrance into womanhood. 

The father of the girl would have to inform the people of her 
condition and call them together, naming the girl ; and he would 
ask the chief of another "party" (clan), or of another village, 
to conduct the ceremony, putting it entirely into his hands and 
doing nothing himself except to provide the food and presents for 
the assembled people and invited guests. Baskets, strings of 
shell-beads, and sivut paviut, the sacred stick with flint in the 
end, had to be given away in every ceremony to those coming 
from a distance to assist. These were the same as money and 
were used in this way before they had any other sort of money. 

The chief would call out three times in invocation and mention 
the name of the girl. 



35 This description evidently refers to the form of boys ' sand-painting 
given by Salvador Cuevas. 

36 Liiiseiio, ashish, menses. Mr. Sparkman gives wekenish, girls ' puberty 
ceremony; ashish, song at this ceremony; ash-k, undergo first menstruation. 
The Diegueiio call the ceremony A-kil. 



94 Universitt/ of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

The frirl, or ^irls, if several, would be seated upon the ground, 
and in front of her would be placed a big basket three feet or so 
in diameter, containing feather head-dresses, feather skirts, the 
sacred stones wiala, large quartz crystals, and possibly others. '' 
The chief, taking some tobacco in his hand, would powder it in 
his fingers, at the same time rolling it into a ball; and kneeling 
in front of the candidate would make the indescribable sound of 
invocation with curious forward motions of arm and body three 
times repeated, the third time placing the ball of tobacco in the 
girl's mouth. Warm water was then administered in a basket, 
chilkwit.^' If she should vomit, it was taken as a sign that she 
had not been virtuous ; but if she were good she would not vomit. 
This was a severe test. 

The tobacco induced drowsiness, and in this state the girl was 
placed in a large hole that had been previously dug in the ground 
and heated by a fire and when sufficiently warm lined with green 
boughs and covered with brush. Two sacred plants were used 
for this purpose, nenaxel paehayel (double name), sumac and a 
kind of sedge. ^° The names of these two plants are always given 
together in a double term in the list of the First People. 

The girl is placed there for three days. Only her mother or 
the wife of the chief can see her and attend her. A basket, chak- 
wit, the sort men carry on a staff over the shoulder, is put over 
her face to keep the flies off; and a new tightly woven basket cup, 
chilkwit, is used to give her water to drink. She can drink only 
warm water. 

As she must not touch any part of her body with her hands, 
two small sticks are allowed her with which to scratch herself. 

In very ancient times, instead of these sticks small oblong 
pieces of stone or abalone shell, pierced with a hole at the larger 
end, were fastened by a string aroiind her wrist loosely enough 
for convenience in handling: and with these she might scratch 
her head or body. 

She must lie perfectly still, and in the day time she may rise 
slightly from a recumbent jxjsitiou while the attending woman 

37 See H. N. Rust. Anier. Anthrop.. n.s., VllI, 28, 1906. 
88 Chilkwut, basket hat, also used as cup. — S. 

39 Nenexyal (x German cli), tussock-grass; pachayat or pachayal, a coarse 
grass or sedge. — S. 



1908] DiiBois. — Ileligion of the Luiseno Indians. 95 

arranges her hair, then lie back in the same place and keep mo- 
tionless. 

At night the men dance around the place where the girl is, 
singing the ashish songs to the accompaniment of the ringing 
stones. In the day time the women dance and sing songs differ- 
ent from those of the men. This will be kept up constantly for 
three days, a second village coming and continuing the ceremony, 
and so on. A men's ashish song is presei'ved on phonograph 
record 397 of the University of California. It begins : "No ash- 
wo, I am men.struating. "■'" One man sings this while all the men 
dance. The song mentions the mountains that were First Peo- 
ple: San Bernardino (Gray-head), the older brother; and San 
Jacinto, the younger brother; and all the other places, the hot 
springs, and the mountain ridge where the first ceremonies were 
held after the death of Ouiot. The mountains were placed all 
around to keep watch, and spy out things, — ceremonial sins. 

A women's ashish song. University of California record num- 
ber 395, mentions a series of places ending at Elsinore. It was 
here that Kauko and Chihemel first had menses. When the first 
ceremony of this sort was over, they felt happy and composed this 
song. This is the last song of the ceremony. It mentions the 
travels of the First People from Katuktu to Kalaupa and then 
to Elsinore. 

Another ashish song, sung by Martasal Tabae, is on University 
of California record number 414. This mentions the man who 
leads the hunt. There are a great many of these songs which 
properly belong to the girls ' ceremony, but they are also sung in 
the Image ceremony. 

A second song on this record was given by the same man in 
illustration, though it is a women's ashish song. The songs of 
the men and the women are different, and the men never sing the 
women 's songs. This song mentions a hill to which the girl runs 
at the conclusion of the ceremony, when a rock is painted. 

Another song of this ceremony is on record number 410 Uni- 
versity of California, also sung by IMartasal. This mentions the 
deer when he tried to escape from death. He sent his spirit 
north, south, east, and west, but death was everywhere. He could 



*" Non ashk, or non ashka, I am menstruating the first time. — S. 



96 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

not escape. Blue-fly and Buzzard followed him and killed him. 
This is in realitj' a song of the ant-ordeal, but they sing it in the 
girls' ceremony, though it is different from the regular ashish 
songs. 

The kwinamish songs of the spirit are sung in the girls' cere- 
mony as the second series in that ritual. 

After three days of constant singing and dancing day and 
night by men and women, the girl is taken out and the wife of the 
chief paints her face. Hair bracelets and anklets are placed upon 
her hands and feet ; and she is decorated with a necklace of pieces 
of mica. 

She must not eat meat or salt for a month ; and must drink no 
cold water for a year. She may voluntarily continue the fast for 
two or three years. At the conclusion of the month of fasting, 
the sand-painting is made upon the ground by the chief, and in- 
struction given as in the case of the boj's. 

A lump of ground sage-seed and salt is made, and with this 
the chief touches the girl's head, shoulders, arms, breast, knees, 
and feet, placing it at last in her mouth. He must do this facing 
the north and after walking three times around the sand-painting 
and making invocation to the north. She then kneels in front of 
the sand-painting, and with a hand on each side of it bends and 
spits the lump into the central hole, which is then covered by 
several men who sit around and push the sand with their hands 
from the circumference to the center, obliterating the painting 
and covering the hole at the same time. 

A race is then made by the women and girls, and this ends 
the ceremony. They run to the appointed hill, where the wife of 
the chief paints the girls' faces red, black and white, and scraping 
some of the paint from their faces uses it to paint the rock in 
certain designs (PI. 4). The face of the girl is painted each 
month in a different design, and corresponding marks are made 
upon the rock. This is done for four months, after which she 
maj' paint her face as she chooses. The hair bracelets and anklets 
which she has worn are taken oft" and deposited upon tlio rock at 
the time when it is first painted. 



1908] DuBois. — Beligion of the Luiseno Indians. 



SACRED CHUNGICHNISH OBJECTS. 

The Clumgichiiish woi-ship was a religion of fear. When the 
people sent the sun, Temet, into the heavens, he was to watch the 
people as Tukmit,'"'" the Sky, also watches them, to see if anyone 
does wrong, such as stealing food during a fast. The North- 
star was also put there to watch and spy out everything. It is 
like our spirit. 

The moon, Jloyla, was sent up there to look out for everything. 
In the day-time the Sky and Sun watch the doings of men ; and in 
the night the Moon does this, so no wrong doer can hide himself, 
for when one goes the other comes. They keep changing places. 

The people were afraid of the sun because he watches every- 
thing, and they made it a rule always to eat before the sun rose 
in the morning. 

Chungiehnish still punishes, or did so lately. The Yapiehe 
people went to give toloache to Pio Amago, the last Indian who 
took, it, who lived at La Jolla. Then the Potrero people began 
the dancing. It was not their place to do so, and it made the 
others angry. Chungiehnish saw that the ceremony was not be- 
ing properly performed. Suddenly the leader of the dance fell 
to the ground in terrible pain. The father of Salvador Cuevas 
was there and he was a medicine-man. He went to see what he 
could do. When he examined the man he soon found out that the 
people were so angry at him that he had got sick and that 
Chungiehnish was hurting him. They must come and be friends 
and he would get well. So they had a big talk, and made up, and 
the man got up and became well. 

Tourmaline was used to cure a man punished by illness by 
Chungiehnish. It was rubbed on his body. But if anyone un- 
authorized touched it, he was punished. 

All of the things mentioned as First People*"' were sacred to 
Chungiehnish. There were many other things not remembered 
or not given in the list of them obtained. Tukmul, the sacred 
winnowing basket, has already been described. 



•10° Tukomit, night ; tupash, sky. — S. 

40'' See lists given in the Creation myths below. 



98 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

The sacred stick, Sivut paviiit.'"'' was brought from one pueblo 
to another in a ceremony, and served the same purpose as money, 
being given in return for presents of food. These sticks were 
painted red, white, and black. The old Diegueiio chief, Cinon 
Duro, had one of these from Rincon, one from Cahuilla, and one 
from Hot Springs, long since lost. 

The feather objects were sacred : the feather head-dress, the 
eagle-feather skirt, and the feather band or "rope," Luiseno 
tuminet,"" mentioned in the Diegueno story of Chaup. Of the 
only specimen seen by the author, one part is in the American Mu- 
seum of Natural History, the remainder at the University of 
California, where it is number 1-9580 in the JIuseum of the 
Department of Anthropologj' (PI. 3). This portion, very old 
and much worn, is in three pieces, aggregating a total length of 
over seven feet, the longest single piece being five feet, with an 
average width of seven to eight inches. It is made of black 
feathers, four to five inches in length. The base of each feather 
is stripped to the quill for an inch and a half. The feathers are 
laid alternately, pointing in opposite directions, and sewn to- 
gether through their bases with two threads. The backs of the 
feathers are all on the same side, thus giving a uniform appear- 
ance to both the front and the back of the band. 

The ceremonial u.se of this feather band is now uncertain. 
According to the interpreter, this particular specimen was used 
in latter times in the cure of men punished by Chungichnish with 
sickness. Those performing the ceremony all took hold of it. 
Each one would then take a piece cut* off from the band and put 
it in the fire during the ceremony. This was probably on account 
of its inherent value as an ancient Chungichnish object, and not 
because it was designed for use in that way. 

Venegas, quoting Father Torquemada, describes in the Island 
of Saint Catherine (Santa Catalina) an Indian "temple," "a 
large level court, and in it was a large circular space with an 
inelosure of feathers of several birds of different colors, which I 
understood were tlio.se of birds thev sacrificed in great numbers. 



*o' Paviut, stick with crystal inserted in one end, and having a ceremonial 
use; shi 'valum, sea shells; perhaps sivut or shi'vul denotes pieces of shell 
glued to the paviut. — S. The Dieguefios call it Kotat. 

<»'' Tuminut, wide feather band slung over shoulder at tanish dance. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseno Indians. 99 

Within the circle was an image strangely bedaubed with a variety 
of colors . . . holding in its hand a figure of the sun and 
moon." Two tame ravens were within the circle; and when the 
soldiers killed them the Indians fell into an agony of fear. 

It does not seem at all improbable that this is evidence of a 
form of Chungichnish worship in one of "the islands of the 
ocean" from which it originally came. The feathers used as an 
"inclosnre" may have been made exactly like the object in ques- 
tion which my interpreter called a "feather rope." 

The raven is the sacred Chungichnish bird, his messenger and 

spy- 

Among the Dieguerios, when the raven flies overhead he caws 
and says, ' ' I will kill you. ' ' Then the medicine-men would smoke 
their stone pipes, and blow the smoke in invocation three times 
upward, saying, "Please don't kill us." 

Among sacred objects were classed various forms of smooth 
round pebbles brought from the seashore, and pieces of cr3'stal 
colored with lithia in tourmaline formations. 



100 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Etlin. [Vol. 8 
MOUKXIXG CEREMONIES. 

TUB IMAGE CEREMONY. 

Both the Luisefios and the Diegueiios have had a commemora- 
tive ceremony for the dead from early times ; but with what tribe 
the manufacture of images made to represent the dead penson 
originated, must be matter of speculation.*^ 

The Luiseiio ritual is especially complete in the exactness with 
which the song series are performed ; and the Chungichuish woi'- 
ship may be said to be founded upon the thought of the spirit, 
embodied in such abstractions as Wanawut, Chum Towi, Kwin- 
amo, all of these being different words to express either the spirit 
of man or the spirit above. 

The following account of the Image mourning ceremony is 
given by Lucario Cuevish: 

When people die, the chief will collect food and valuables and 
notify the other leading men that he is going to have the Image 
dance. The others make ready to perform the ceremony. One 
chief out of four or five parties will do this, and the others will 
assist. 

They sing all night long, then go off to a place a little distant 
to make the images, for this is not done before everyone. The 
images are dressed as in life In old days the women's figures 
would be clothed in the short skirts of fringe made from elders 
or willows. Hair is put upon the head. The eyes are made of 
abalone shell. Nose, mouth, and sometimes ears are made. 

"When all is ready at this place, the chief goes to the main 
place of the ceremony and digs as many holes as there are images 
to stand them in. He fii-st calls out three times and the others 
answer him : thmi. cai-rying the images, they march to the sacred 
enclosure of brush, singing the solemn recitative: "Towish chok- 
ya, the spirit appears."*'' They stand the images in the holes 

■•i Mourning ceremonies with images to represent the dead are not eon- 
finod to Southern California. Profe.ssor Dixon has recently described an 
elaborate form in his "The Northern Maidu, " Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 
XV 11, 24.'), 254.— Ed. 

<2 To%rish, spirit, corpse, 'devil'; choxya (x German ch), perfect tense of 
ehoxi, to be born. — S. 



190S] D>iBois. — Seligion of the Luiseno Indians. 101 

while the women among the relatives place gifts of valuables 
-where they can be accepted by those performing the ceremony, 
who sing the songs of Tochinish/^ the Image ritual, while stand- 
ing near the images. 

The men and women of the visiting party have their faces 
painted, but the relatives do not paint or sing or take any part 
in the ceremony. 

The singing without dancing goes on for a certain length of 
time. Then the chief takes a whirling-board, or bull-roarer, mum- 
lapish." Instead of telling them to stop singing, he whirls the 
board three times. The images are then again lifted up, and 
carried back in procession to the more distant place. The danc- 
ers now paint themselves and put on the feather head-dresses. 
The whirling-board is swung again as a signal, and they come 
again carrying the images and marching around the sacred en- 
closure, bringing the turtle-shell rattle.''^ In the sacred enclos- 
ure they dance to a long series of songs. 

Then they burn the images, sometimes burning the clothes and 
decorations with them ; but the visitors have the right to take off 
the clothes and keep them, the relatives furnishing others for the 
burning. While the images are burning, the men and women 
dance around the fire singing Sungamish,*" the fini.shing songs. 
Other songs called Topasish*' are sung while only the men dance. 
They sing one or two of these songs and half a dozen or so will 
dance. 

A whirling dance with an eagle-feather skirt is danced at this 
ceremony. They sing and dance all night, and may end the 
ceremony by noon the next day. 

The songs of Pikmakvul,*' death, are sung while they bura 
the clothes, and during the burning they have a recitative de- 



43 Tauchanish. — S. 

** A flat disk of wood attached to a string and whirled in the air to make 
a dull humming sound, still used at Mesa Grande. Mr. Sparkman gives 
momlaxpish (x German ch). 

45Paiayut; paiala, turtle. (Paayat, paila. — S.) 

*6 Shangamish, songs, also a dance, at the ceremony at which clothing is 
burned. — S. 

4' Tapa 'sash.— S. 

48 Pi 'mukvul, death, also songs at mourning ceremony ; pi 'mukvul is 
singular past ; pi 'makish, singular present. — S. 



102 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

scribing the burning of Oniot. This recitative tells how thin and 
sick Ouiot grew. Every song of Pikmakvul tells about Ouiot, 
and they change from one to the other. 

Then they march around the fire carrying some of the pos- 
sessions of the dead person, and burn these things, telling how 
the First People burned Ouiot. Many dance and a few carry 
the things. Then they stop and sit down for awhile. 

They now make an invocation to the sky three times, breath- 
ing, groaning, indescribable sounds, and put the things on the 
fire. They sing: "No towi, no towi, my spirit, my spirit." 
These are the songs of Chum towi, our spirit. They sing two 
or three of these songs while they burn the possessions of the 
dead. Then they stop. The relatives bring out baskets and valu- 
ables and those performing the ceremony divide them among 
themselves. 

When all is over they sing the songs from the most important 
song series, as follows : 

First are sung the songs of Pikmakvul, the Ouiot songs of 
death. 

Then some of the series called Temenganesh, songs of Seasons. 

Then some of the series called Chum towi, our spirit, the same 
as Kwinamish. 

Then some of the series called Kamalum, our sous or children, 
mentioning the children of the Earth-mother, the mountains that 
were First People, and so on. 

Then follows the series called Kish, the house, about the house 
of the dead man. There are only a few of these. 

Then some of the series called Anut, the ant, which was used 
in ancient times as an ordeal in a sort of sequel to the toloache 
ceremony to train the young men. 

Then some of the series called Nokwanish.''" .songs in memory 
of the dead. The little rabbit, Tovit, was the first man to sing 
in the original ceremony for the dead when they burned Ouiot, so 
they sing the Nolrwanish songs which the rabbit sang. 

Then follow some of the series called Totowish."' These men- 
tion the spiders, rattlesnakes, and the sun, the avengers of Chun- 
gichnish. 



<o Noknanish, general name for men 's songs. — S. 

.'.0 Totawish, a dancer of the morahash ceremony. — S. 



1908] DnBois. — SeUgion of the Luiseiio Indians. 103 

Then some of the series called !Munival,^^ songs of places or 
landmarks. 

Last of all are sung some songs from the series Nyachish, 
song of the people, in which they load their enemies with indecent 
epithets and allusions. Family feuds or small fights arose chief- 
ly from land claims. They seldom or never had wars or battles 
as we understand the words. Each man in the mountains would 
have a patch of oaks, perhaps a hundred acres or so, and no one 
else was allowed to go there and gather acorns. Fighting arose 
over this. So they sing against each other. Even the women 
sing these song-s. 

This ends Lucario's account of the Image fiesta. '- 

THE NOTISH CEREilOXY. 

Another form of the Image mourning-ceremony was known 
to the Luiseiios as having been in use among the Indians of the 
north ; and, though never performed among the mountain Luis- 
enos, it was celebrated at least once at San Luis Rey, for Lu- 
eario Cuevish remembers to have seen it there. 

Salvador Cuevas, who never saw this form of the ceremony, 
gives the sacred basket pole as one of the children of the Earth- 
mother, sent by her to the north. 

This ritual for the dead was called Notish" or Kutumit." 
The chief feature of it was a tall painted pole called Kimul Che- 
heni.sh,^° made very smooth from the trunk of a pine or fir, 
which was hung with baskets at the top to be reached by climbing 



51 Monival, verbal noun from moni, to go, come, journey; denotes past 
action of verb, tracks, where something passed; there are songs of moniral, 
where one 's ancestors traveled. — S. 

52 According to the Dieguenos, the Mohave people first made mourning 
images at Wikami, a wonderful mountain, level on top, where all the relig- 
ious ceremonials originated. Humkahap, the Mohaves, were the youngest, 
that is, the last made of the related tribes, and always stayed in the home 
place. 

The Diegueno Image ceremony has been briefly described in the American 
Anthropologist, N.s. VII, 625, 1905. 

53 Xotush, ceremony when things are given away.— S. 

51 Kutumit, pole erected at notush ; objects are hung on it. — S. Kotumut, 
pole at San Fernando described by C. Hart Merriam (unpublished account). 

55 Kimal, small house, diminutive of kicha, objective kish, house; chehe- 
nish, objects hung on kutumit; no doubt derived from ehehe'i, to appear, 
show. — S. 



104 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

as a contest of skill. This pole was as high as a house and was 
painted with different colors. It represented the dead man, the 
spirit. Different parts of the pole were painted in different col- 
ors to refer to the different parts of the body. The pole was not 
painted with the shape of a man, but one part of the painting 
meant the knee, another the arm, and so on. The top for the 
head was always painted white. 

On top was fastened the dressed skin of a crow or raven, the 
same they laid on the breast of Ouiot when they burned him. 
When the pole was set up they danced and sang. 

Notish was a more elaborate form of the mourning-ceremony, 
in which it was necessary that great stores of food should be 
provided, and different villages were invited to participate. 
Contests of skill were a feature of the occasion. The simpler 
form of the Image ceremony can be performed by one vil 
alone."* 



^8 The Notish ceremony is referred to below in the third of the myths 
given. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiselio Indians. 



CEREMONIAL SONGS. 

Among the Luisenos the relation of ceremonial songs to 
distinct series with special meanings and uses can still be clearly 
traced. The most important of these series were used in the 
Image ceremony, as has been stated above. The complete list, as 
far as obtained,'' may be given as follows : 

Pikmakvul series, songs of death. 

Temenganesh series, songs of seasons. 

Chum Towi or Kwinamish series, songs of the spirit. 

Kamalum series, songs of the First People. 

Kish series, songs of the house. 

Nokwanish series, songs in memory of the dead. 

Totowish series, songs of the Chungichnish avengers. 

Munival series, songs of landmarks. 

Nyaehish series, songs of people cursing their enemies. 

Anut series, songs of the ant-ordeal, now used in other cere- 
monies. 

Sungamish, the finishing songs. 

Topasish, men's dance songs. 

Then the songs of the individual for lesser ceremonial occa- 
sions, shaman 's songs for rain-making, for fair weather ; for har- 
vest; for good luck, doctoring; bad luck, death to enemies; for 
deeds of wonder as instruction to boys, and so on. These include 
songs of Chatish. songs of Numkish, songs of Tuknish, all of 
which are Chungichnish songs. 

For the benefit of the special student who may be interested, 
a description of those obtained on graphophone records follows : 

Record 369.^* Song of Temenganesh, Songs of Seasons. The 
words as spelled by Jose Albanas or Albanez, the singer, in Span- 
ish orthography, are : Achonacua tuganecancua a guanaguot,'^ 
etc. This song means: "All these I have mentioned and Wana- 
wut. I have mentioned all the names of the seasons and stars 



s'See also the preceding account of the Image Ceremony. 

58 Unless otherwise mentioned, numbers refer to the collection of phono- 
graphic records in the Museum of the University of California. 

59 Choun, all, everyone; tungani, to give name to; -kwa, suflBx, then; 
■wanawut. — S. 



106 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

and Wanawut. I am proud of my songs. I have believed in my 
songs." All danced as they sang this song, which is part of the 
second series in the Image ceremony. 

Record 370. Song of Temenganesh. By Albanas. Luiseno 
words: Helemocme temenganesh apangaula, etc."" This is a 
women's song. It mentions the water and mud in which are 
Waha\s'ut, the frog, and Karout,"' the earth-worm. Wahawut 
hid away Temenganesh, i.e., frogs disappear and are unheard at 
certain seasons, and at a certain month come out and begin to 
sing. 

Record 371. Song of Temenganesh. By Albaiias. Luiseno 
words: Tjason noqui son notelaneba, etc. Month of Novoya- 
mul.'- When Tukmit the Sky grows old. When Tomaiyowit, 
the Earth, has her menses (the green scum, fresh water algae that 
appear on ponds). Eagles moult. This song mentions the 
months"^ Tasmoimal and Taunamal. "What shall I say about 
my home and about my talks?" Women dance to this song. 

Record 372. Song of Temenganesh. By Albaiias. Luiseno 
words: Potoyau yauea anmal, etc. The ant has his season."' 
He has opened his house. When the days grow warm he comes 
out. The spider has her little house and her hill. The butterfly 
has her hou-se, pohota."* (This word refers to the sacred enclos- 
ure of brush made in circular form, in which the religious cere- 
monies were held.) Wiskun, chipmunk, and also the larger 
squirrel, yet have the mavakul,"' (log hollowed out and used for 
holding acorns. The allusion is to the log which the chipmunk 
carried when he was one of the First People, a log ten men could 
not lift, on which they laid the body of Ouiot when they burned 
it.) The song on the record ends here. The rest of the song is 
as follows: Atachama,"" a bird, and another bird are mentioned. 



«o Helimuk, hid; temenganesh, season; panga, in the water. — S. 

61 Karawut, earth-worm. — S. 

"2 See the section headed Star Lore and Calendar, below, for a discussion 
of the "months" or divisions of the year. 

83 Potauyowi yaiika anmal, his language has ant. — S. 

0* Po-hota, his or her brush fence, from hotahish, ante, enclosure of warn- 
kish, ceremonial place. — S. 

«i> Mavakul or mavakush. — S. 

80 Atachimai, a very small bird. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of Vie Luiseno Iiidians. 107 

It is time for the eagle to fly off. It is time for the acorns to 
fall from the trees. 

Eecord 373. Song of Temenganesh. By Albanas. Luiseno 
words: Memee no asunecua awawik."' etc., "I am something 
doing." This is Nemoimal season. The bear sheds his hair and 
says, I am fat. The whale, koyowut, now gets fat. The deer 
grows fat. 

Keeord 374. Song of Temenganesh. By Albaiias. Luiseno 
words: Tomamee uchanat potoblecala,*' etc. "North the elk 
has young." In the north at this season uchanut has her young; 
and pashakut,*^" the elk, has young. In the east pahut,'" the 
mountain sheep, and ehakla,'^ a desert animal, bring forth young. 
In the south awawut and tamyasowut bring forth young. In 
the west the ocean is hunauish,'- tossing its waves back and 
forth. In the center, "here," the deer sheds his hair, and the 
acorn grows fat. The sky "sheds," that is, changes color. The 
clouds of winter are swept away. Tupush is sky. Nahonit also 
means skJ^ Tukmit is the personified skj\"' ThLs is the season 
of Pahoyomal, when snakes crawl out, frogs sing, trees are juicy 
and ready to put out leaves, in early spring. 

Record 375. Song of Temenganesh. By Albanas. First 
part of song: Whaimul piwamul (primeval stage of being, with 
some reference to the Milky Way,'*) lies back extended making 
a humming noise. Second part : I recognized afar off, from the 
door of my house, Nahut,'° the stick used to club Coyote,'® and 
Kashlapish, the ringing stones used in the girls ' ceremonJ^ Third 
part: I look east. I look up. Look, Niikiilish (Antares) rises. 



6" Mimik-nio ashunin-kwa awa 'awik, meaning as given. — S. 

08 Tomamik uchanut potovlykala, north where the buffalo is breeding, or, 
in the north the buffalo his breeding place. Uchanut, a fabulous animal, 
identified with the bison; tovli, breed, bear young, lay eggs. — S. 

69 Pashakut, elk.— S. 

"" Paut, mountain-sheep. — S. 

'1 Chalaka, horned toad. — S. 

'2 Perhaps wanauwanahish, verbal noun from wanauwani, to move. — S. 

'3 Tupash, sky, nahainit, sky, in ceremonial language ; tukmit, night. — S. 

''* See the Creation myths given below. Mr. Sparkman says : Only used 
in songs and myths; perhaps from whaiahat, white, and pewipwish, gray. 

'5 Nahut, walking stici. — S. 

TO See the account of the death of Ouiot in the Creation mvths below. 



108 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

Tungavish (buzzard, Altair) rises. Ahuta (I\Iilky Way) is 
rising at the same time. Aylueha'^ (Venus) is rising. 

Record 376. Song of Temenganesh. By Albanas. Luisefio 
words: Asguot pela telamoe,"* etc., "Ashwut was saying." The 
eagle, ashwut, talked about the stars rising. Kariya'* Ahuta, rises 
Milky Waj'. Antares and Altair rise. — In the west the eagle 
mentions the things in the ocean. — The singer does not know 
what these words mean. The Chungichnish worship with its 
songs was brought to the mountain Indians from the islands of 
the ocean. He mentions Harasa, Catalina Island, and Kimki, 
San Clemente Island."" 

Record 377. Song of Temenganesh. By Albanas. Mulmus- 
na hete pela kamai temet, etc. The sun rose at Mulmus.*' An- 
tares rose too. 

Record 378. Song of Temenganesh. Wunal Pewipwe ti- 
wium,'- etc. "That San Bernardino mountain see," Sulkul, the 
fall cricket,*' said. (Sulkul was the first basket-maker, accord- 
ing to one version of the creation myth.) "Look at Pewipwe; 
look at (naming all the other high mountains that were born as 
First People). The acorns are ripe. Look at Pawi Chawima,'* 
(Cahuilla); Kupa Kawima," (a hill at Warner's ranch), I'pa" 



'" Eliichax (x German ch). — S. 

"8 Aslnvut-pila ' telamuk, golden-eagle nas-saying. — S. 

'8 Kari 'ya, rose. — S. 

80 Catalina island: Kimki harasa; San Clemente island: Shoi ponga'; 
San Nicolas island ; Atauki ponga '. I have had much trouble in ascertain- 
ing the names of these islands. Some say Kimki harasa is Catalina, others 
that it is Clemente. Some say ponga' is Catalina, others that it means 
island. As ponga ' is placed after Shoi and Atauki it probably means island. 
— S. 

Kimki is unquestionably San Clemente, and Harasa Catalina. Shoi and 
Atauki are not referred to by others. Kinki, Kinki-par is the Gabrielino 
name of San Clemente (present series of publications, IV, 143, 153). Har- 
asa has only been given in the locative form Haras-gna; it occurs in Reid's 
list of Gabrielino rancherias, but without a designation of its situation 
(quoted, ibid., 143). The usual Gabrielino name for Catalina is Pimu; 
Pipimar has been obtained among the Luisefio (ibid., 142, 143, 144, 153). 
—Ed. 

81 Malnmsnga heta-pila ' kaniala temet, at Malmus rose the son sun. — S. 

82 Wunal Pewipwi tiwiyam, that San Bernardino mountain see ye. — S. 
Puwipui, Piwipui, present series, IV, 133, 148. 

83 Shulkul, a green cricket. — S. 

8< Pawi, the warm spring in the center of village at Cahuilla ; Chawimai, 
probably a valley at Cahuilla known as Duraznos. — S. 

85 Kupa, Agua Caliente, kawimal, hill. — S. (Gupa, present series of 
publications, IV, 148, 150). 

80 I 'pa.— S. 



1908] ViiBois. — Seligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 109 

(Volean) ; Naavo Waheto,*' (hills soiath and east of Potrero) ; 
Malava,*** (Palomar Mountain)." The song mentions the cold 
wind of early morning when Antares rises, at the time when all 
the Indians take a bath. This was the rule. Everyone must 
bathe daily. 

Record 379. By Albanas. After the Temenganesh series 
comes the Kwinamish series, songs of the spirit. In the Image 
ceremony the songs of Pikmakvul, songs of death, each one men- 
tioning Ouiot, are sung for six or seven hours ; then Temenganesh, 
Kwinamish, and others. In the Girls' ceremony the Kwinamish 
songs come second. 

First song of Kwinamish. This is like talking to themselves, 
and sending their spirit to the Milky Way. This song tells of 
the council the people held after the death of Ouiot, to see what 
they could do, after they found that there was death. This 
mentions Tula Wanawut,*'* the spirit of the dead. If the cere- 
monies are done right, the spirit will be sent off all right, and 
will not stay in its former abode. In the council they tried to 
see what they could do about their spirits, and so they arranged 
these ceremonies. The song says: The Sky, after all these cere- 
monies were rightly done, felt good in his heart. It mentions 
the sand-paiuting, Eskanish Tarohayish. 

Record 380. Song of Kwinamish. By Albanas. Tomamik 
yula poaukala,"" north the spirit remains; kwimik yula poauka- 
la,°" east the spirit remains ; south and west, the same. It is 
held, tied, to the four quarters of the sky, so that it will remain 
there and will not get away. 

Record 381. Kwinamish song. By Albaiias. Tomamik yula 
Wanawut poponakala ponarakala auma,"^ etc. "To the north the 



8' Naav, a mountain south of Rincon, across the river from it; Wee 'to. 
Pine mountain, across the river from Potrero ; wee 'tut, the great-coned pine, 
Firms coulteri. — S. 

88 Malava, old village on Palomar mountain. — S. 

89 Yula wanawut, hair wanawut. These words may refer to plaiting the 
hair of a dead person and using it at dances for some time afterward. — S. 

9" Tomanik (resp. kwimik) yula poauwkala, north (east) the hair its- 
remaining; poauwkala, from auwi, to be, live, means it living, its living 
place, etc. — S. 

91 Tomamik yula wanawut poponakala pongarakala auwma, north hair 
wanawut its-tying its-fastening is ; poui, tie ; ngari, tie, fasten ; po-, pronom- 
inal third person. — S. 



110 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

spirit (double name) with (elaborately woven) strings remains 
tied." No kwinamo wunac qua auma."- "^ly spirit up there 
remains." Antares and Altair make the wind blow and remain 
there in the east. 

Record 382. Kwinaniish son>?. By Albanas. No suna qua 
haiyawa nioj'na, no suna qua takwaya moyna,"'' etc. "At the 
time of death, when I found there was to be death, I was very 
much surprised. All was failing. My home, I was sad to leave 
it." The second part means: "I have been looking far, sending 
my spirit north, south, east, and west, trying to escape from 
death, but could find nothing, no way of escape." 

Record 383. Song of Munival. By Albanas. The Munival 
songs are individual and inherited. They describe the exact 
route of the Temecula people, ancestors to the singer, and the 
landmarks made by each to claim title to places in their migra- 
tions, usually at very short distances. Munival no qua awut,°* 
"the tracks I do not understand." JIunival no qua nalachat,"'' 
"the tracks I make mistakes about." They are therefore ex- 
plained. The song mentions different places: Nachivo pomi- 
savo,"" the canon the First People could not go through: Tokta 
totpa,°' a place ; Kawima polalak,"' a certain hill ; Ashwut kali- 
kwona (eagle sits on something), a place; Waasawaha pometa- 
voy;"" and Exvo Temeko,""' Temecula. 

Record 384. Chatish song. By Albanas. The Chatish"' 



I 



82 No-kwinamo nuna'-kwa auwma, my-spirit (origin) there-tlipn lives. — S. 

»3 Noshunupkwa h.ivinga moinga, noshunupkwa takwayak moinga, then- 
I-thought atrace in-moon, then-my-heart is-surprised in-moon. A race called 
hayish was held at the time of the new moon; hayinga is the locative case, 
as moinga is of moila, moon. No-shun, my heart, is used in speaking of 
thoughts, sometimes with a verb and sometimes without. — S. 

»< Monivalnokwa auwik, trackslthen do-not-know; auwi, to not know. 
— S. 

»5 Monival-no-kwa nalahik; nalahi, to err. — S. 

08 Journ. Am. Folk-Lore XTX, 31.3, 1906: Xachivomisavo, a place "north 
of the San Bernardino Xcedles, " where the hitherto united people were 
separated, thus acquiring distinct languages. Mr. Sparkman says: "A 
canyon near San Bernardino. Xachi, a negative verb, not to go in or under. 
Misi, a negative verb, not to go through, not to get past. ' ' 

»" Totka ; totpa ; names of places. — S. 

OS Kawimai polalak, name of a hill. — S. 

00 Wiashaha pomhetavoi or pohetavoi. — S. 

lo" Exva (x German ch), a place near Temecula; Temcko, Temecula. — S. 

101 Chatush, a scries of songs of wizards. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Lniseiio Indians. Ill 

series are secret individual songs, descended in the family or com- 
posed by the singer. This is a song the great-nncle of Albaiias 
used to sing. No enge no mane hortata kulkula, etc., from my 
feet, from my hands, I drew forth, etc.^"-. Some of the shamans 
would extract something from their legs or hands or different 
parts of the body during the dances to show their power : acorns 
or rabbits or little snakes or frogs. Albaiias 's great-aunt was a 
shaman, and could vomit up from her mouth a small live rattle- 
snake. 

Record 385. Song of Chatish. By Albaiias. Nororia hech- 
um sil pom mane,'°^ etc. "It thundered. Something from their 
feet, their hands, etc." The earth shakes and rumbles when the 
shamans march around. 

These songs were sometimes sung to make plenty, to bring 
abundance of rain, grass, and acorns. They are also called Songs 
of Numkwish"* or Tuknish.^''^ Each "hechicero" has two or 
three of these secret songs, which he sings at his house and not 
at public gatherings. 

Record 386. Chatish song. By Albanas. These songs were 
also sung to hurt people with sickness and death, and this par- 
ticular song could kill a man at a distance of many miles. Lewea 
lewea towowea, shoots oS an invisible (spirit-like) power. The 
"hechicero" had within him something which could not be seen."" 
He would draw it out and throw it off towards the man he wished 
to injure. The "hechicero stick," — wood without stone in the 
end, shaped like a small straight sword, — would be used to do 
this. 

Sometimes several shamans met at a house to kill a man at a 
distance. Tukmul Chayut ( double name : tukmul, flat coiled 
basket, Chayut, flat twined basket)"' would be made ready, each 

102 No-engai no-mangai hothota kulkala, from my feet, from my hands, 
was drawn, was drawn. The first two words are ablatives, from no-e' and 
no-ma ; hothota and kulkala are intensive forms of hoti, to pull, haul, and 
kuU, to pull up, pull out. — S. 

103 Ngorora heehasil pom-engai pom-mangai, sounded (thundered) some- 
thing from their feet, from their hands. — S. 

10'' Namkush, a ceremony performed with the idea of making acorns, 
rabbits, etc., plentiful. Namkokwat kwil, one who makes acorns grow. — S. 

losTu'nish, a ceremony to make plants which are valued, such as ehia, 
sage, grow. — S. 

lo" Lewya lewya towauya, meaning about as given, past tenses. — S. 

lo'Tukmal; chayut, open-work sifting basket of rush. — S. 



112 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

man bringing his own basket. Chungichnish said that they must 
always have tukmul ehayut when they had the ceremonies or did 
anj'thing. A certain Indian's mother was killed by witchcraft 
by his own uncle, after which some of his mother's people, sha- 
mans, met together at night and killed the old man in the same 
way. He died in a few days. Another well-known instance of 
these beliefs was the killing by witchcraft of the woman who 
dispossessed the Indians from an ancient village site, ha\'ing 
acquired the land under the terms of a Spanish grant. The 
Indians thus driven off had their revenge in this way, and .she 
did not live long to enjoy her property. 

Record 387. By Albanas. Song of Anut. the large ant of 
the ant-ordeal, used as a hunting song, since the ordeal has been 
long discontinued. Pom peai yaumo oskamo."* "They kept the 
game to themselves." This tells about the animals when they 
were killed after the death of Ouiot. Mountain lion killed the 
deer, though he tried to escape from death. Tukwut, mountain 
lion, Iswut, wolf (long since extinct), Tomihut, summer-cloud or 
thunder-cloud,"* were some of the chief men in arranging the 
ceremonies after the death of Ouiot. They are mentioned in the 
song. 

Eecord 388. Song of Chatish. By Albaiias. Words : Necop 
manaa, Towit mauaa, Yawit manaa, etc. "It is coming to me. 
Towit is coming. Yawit is coming.""" Towit is the thick mist 
that comes before the rain.'" This is a Chungichnish song of 
plenty. One man will dance while another sings it. It may also 
be sung as an individual song at the Image ceremony. 

Record 389. Sung by Lucario Cuevish. This song was sung 
in the ceremony for healing a man punished by Chungichnish. 
It is a Chungichnish song. Anyone in the old times revealing 
the secrets ("as I am doing now," he saj^s), would be stricken 
down with illness, and these songs would aid in effecting his cure. 



108 Pom-peai yaumuk oshkamuk, their-killing had diil-not-wish-to-give; 
they did not wish to give away what they had killed. — S. 

100 Tomihat or tomawut. — S. 

lid Xekup mona, Towutup mona, Yawutup mona, to me it comes, Towut 
comes, Yawut comes. — S. 

Ill Towut, or Yawut, a fine dust seen in the air when the north wind is 
blowing at a distance. — S. 



1908] BuBois. — Seligion of Ihe LxiUeno Indians. 113 

The song mentions hainit, the band around the head used to put 
the feathers in, and pechej^a, feather headdress."^ It tells about 
the shadows east by the sun. The connection between hainit and 
the sun is hard to be understood ; biit the allusion may possibly 
be the same here as in the mj-th,"^ where it is difficult to under- 
stand who Hainit was. He was probably the one among the First 
People who afterwards became the head-band for the feathers. 

Record 390. Chungichnish song. By Lucario Cuevi.sh. The 
song mentions Muta, the horned owl, whose feathers make the 
sacred headdress. It mentions also the sea-weed on the seashore, 
one of the First People and sacred to Chungichnish. It mentions 
pecheya, feather headdress. The same words are repeated over 
and over. 

The Chungichnish worship was brought to the mountains from 
San Juan Capistrano. Near Capistrano is a hill where there are 
a live rattlesnake and a raven, Chungichnish animals, that have 
been there from time immemorial. The.v are still there. 

Record 391. By Lucario Cuevish. Not a song, but a recita- 
tive by the eagle; part of the Ouiot story. The eagle, seeking 
escape from death, went north from Temecula to San Bernardino, 
came around by the east to the south and we.st through Julian, 
Cuyamaea, and Palomar, going towards Temecula, and died at 
Temecula."* The eagle sang this song or recitative at Temecula. 
When he got sick he talked this way. He was talking about the 
spirit. When they were all going along they could hear some- 
thing singing far away, and the eagle said that was the spirit ; and 
he told the people that ever^-vvhere that he had been, north, south, 
east, and west, death was there waiting for them. It was very 
near. No one knew when it would come, but they would all have 
to die. 

Record 392. By Lucario Cuevish. Song of the Eagle cere- 
mony. The mourning for the dead, cutting the hair, and so on, 

112 Hainit, headband ; cheyat, feather headdress, poeheya, his feather 
headdress. — S. 

113 Compare the latter of the two versions of the creation myth given 
below. 

11* Lucario 's conception of distance is limited, perhaps on account of his 
blindness. This also illustrates the tendency in Luiseiio myths to concen- 
trate the idea of locality to the Temecula region, which would seem to have 
been the home of these Indians in very early times, at least in their own 
beliefs. 



114 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, arid Ethn. [Vol.8 



continues for a year or so, until they have the eagle ceremony at 
the time the chief decides. This ends the period of mourning. 
The eagle is killed amid universal lamentations. He is one of the 
represcntativRs of the spirit and is connected with the spirits of 
the dead. The song means: "Stand up and hold the eagle in 



AndAOte Soderato. 




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Notation of Eagle-dance song. Record 392. 

your arms. Do not be ashamed. Stand up, all, and dance." 
They dance around the fire and sing this song holding the eagle 
in their arms. 

Record 393. By Lucario Cuevish. Recitative by Ouiot. 
Used in the Image ceremony. Ouiot tells of his suft'erings and 
names the months in which he may die."^ 

Record 394. Toloache ceremony march song. By Lucario 
Cuevish. Tamyush noya kwoya, etc., Taniyush marches by twist- 



no See the corresponding passages in the creation myths. 



1908] DuBois. — EeUgion of the Luiseiio Indians. 115 

ing."° The power of motion attributed to tamyush, the sacred 
stone bowl, and this song, have been mentioned in the account of 
the toloache ceremony. 

Eecord 395. By Lucario Cuevish. Song of Wukunish, the 
girls' ceremony. This is the last song of the ceremony, and is 
sung by the women. The women's songs all end by mentioning 
Elsinore, where Kauko and ChehemaP" first had menses. When 
the first ceremony was concluded, they felt happy and composed 
this song. It mentions the journeying of the Firet People fi'om 
Katuktu to Kalaupa"^ and then to Elsinore. 

Record 396. By Lucario Cuevish. Song of Munival, land- 
marks. This mentions the turtle-rock on the land now occupied 
by Albaiias, but owned by Lucario 's ancestors from time imme- 
morial. There is a large flat rock there marked with cracks like 
the markings on a turtle's back. This used to be a turtle and 
was left in this shape as a track of possession. The song means 
that he is singing to his ancestors. He is singing about the rock. 
It is his. They left it here to claim the land which was theirs. 

Record 397. By Lucario Cuevish. Song of the girls' cere- 
mony. Words: No ashwo,"" etc. I am menstruating. One man 
sings this to the accompaniment of the ringing stones in the girls' 
ceremony while the others dance. This song mentions the moun- 
tains that were First People, starting with San Bernardino on the 
north; Taakwi popat, San Jacinto; Kupa Kawima (Kupa hill), 
the mountain at Warner's ranch; I 'pa, Volcan; Kachikchi ; Cuya- 
maca ; Pawi Chawimai, hot spring near Cahuilla ; Waheto Naavo, 
hills east and south of Potrero in the mountains ; Pahamuk Mala- 
va, pre-historie village on Palomar mountain.^-" The song also 
mentions So-o Ponota,^-' the famous place where the first Notish 



ii« Cf. page 79. 

11" Kaukau, blackswift; chekemal, kingbird or bee martin. — S. 

118 Katukto, a hill probably between Bonsall and San Luis Eey, where 
the people are said to have taken refuge at the time of a flood ; Kalaupa, 
mountain near Santa Margarita. — S. See the story of the Flood below. 

119 Non ashka, I am menstruating the first time. — S. 

1=0 Taakwi, San Jacinto mountain ; po-pet, his younger brother ; Kupa, 
Agua Caliente or Warner's Ranch, kawimal, hill; I 'pa, Volcan; Kachikchi, 
Cuyamaca mountain; Pawi, warm spring in village at Cahuilla valley, Chaw- 
imai, probably Duraznos valley at Cahuilla; Weye'to, Pine mountain, across 
the river from Potrero; Naav, a mountain south of Rineon; Pahamuk and 
Malava, old villages on Palomar mountain. — S. See ante, notes 82 to 88. 

121 Shoau po-nota, Shoau its notush ceremony; Shoau is a place on Palo- 
mar mountain. — S. 



116 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

ceremony for the dead was made and races were held. It mentions 
also Wikio Potoj^ja,'--' a place on Palomar ridge towards Teme- 
eula. San Bernardino, gray-head, white on top, is the elder 
brother; San Jacinto is the younger brother. 

Record 398. By Lueario Cuevish. Song of the Flood. This 
mentions Katuta,'-' Mora, the little hill that was the only dry 
land when the water covered the high mountains.'-* This hill 
was one of the First People. 
Hodermto. 






w 



i r^JlO^^ 1^ ^ 



i^ Slfi ^ irii ^ 



^^ 



S 



^;^4f}-^U 4j ' 4i4J 



ji4 nn' uuivs iv U:i un^ ^^lu^ 






^^^^^^^ 




buil'-Ji^iiBrUji-l^'J l ^Ji'^ l rrl l 



\iit;itii>n (■!' Imago Coreniony song. Record 'SW. 



1-- Wikyo, the highest peak of Palomar; Potopa, a place on Palomar 
mountain. — 8. 

1=3 Katukto. — S. Cf. ante, note 118. 

124 See the second of the Luiseno creation myths given below. 



1908] D^lBois. — Seligion of the Luiseno Indians. 117 

Eecord 399. Ouiot Song. Pikmalrv^il. Sung by Juan de 
Dios, now blind and partty demented from old age. Once a 
famous chief, and leader of the ancient religion. Ouiot sang 
this when he was at Temecula, where he died. (See notation of 
this song on opposite page.) 

Eecord 400. By Juan de Dios. Ouiot Song. Pikmakvul. 
Ouiot 's counsel to his people when he was dying. 

Record 401. Song of Pikmakvul. By Juan de Dios. Ouiot 
enumerates the "months," in each of which he expects to die. 

Record 402. Pikmakvul. By Salvador Cuevas. Ouiot song, 
sung while the images are being burned. 

Record 403. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of Temenganesh, 
telling of the "month" Tasmoymal. The spider-web now catches 
butterflies and gras.shoppers. 

Record 404. By Salvador Cuevas. Chungichuish song, in 
the language of the coast, now extinct. It was taught to Salvador 
by Hilario, a famous singer from the coast. 

Record 405. By Salvador Cuevas. Two songs of Tomaiyo- 
■wit,"° the Earth-mother. She sang these when she was making 
the land larger for her children. 

Second song on same record. Chungichuish song, sung by a 
boy when he jumped into the fire. 

Record 406. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of Tomaiyowit, 
sung in the Image ceremony. This song tells of the noise and 
confusion when the First People were being born. The songs of 
Tomaiyowit may be a separate series, though they are not so 
described. 

Record 407. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of Munival, the 
landmarks of ancestors. This mentions some small hills, and 
the canon which was too small for the people to go through. Some 
of Salvador's ancestors were there. 

Record 408. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of Kwinamish, the 
spirit. Tomamik yula, tomamik wanawut, etc. To the north 
the spirit, etc.^-" This song mentions the names of those First 
People who were sent north, then those in the east, south, and 
west. It mentions So\'ul (a plant) and Makawut, wild grapes, ^-^ 



125 Tamaiyowut. — S. 

126 Literally, to the north the hair, to the north the wanawut-rope. — S. 
12' ShoTul, Rhus aromatica or trilobata; makwit wild grape-vine. — S. 



118 Vniversily of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

people of the East ; and Painvhut Abahiit. hollowed long cotter 
used to keep sacred feathers in,'-* people of the south. 

Record 409. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of Xahaehish.'^" one 
of the Temecula people, who gave names to all the localities in 
the La Jolla mountain region."" This song mentions the diia 
seed they u.sed to gather in early daj's, and another plant with 
small black .seeds used for food. It mentions the deer feast. Pi- 
satish.'-'" The last food of the year, the last of the store of seeds 
and acorns, could be eaten only by the old people. Xahachish 
was a great glutton; and it is significant that the name means 
also a disease, consumption, and an insect. 

Record 410. By ]\Iartasal Tabac. Ashish song. The song 
mentions Deer when, like Eagle, he tried to escape from death. 
He .sent his spirit north, south, east, and west, trying to find a 
way of escape; but death was everywhere; and Buzzard and 
Blue-fly followed him and killed him. 

Record 411. Anut song. By I\Iartasal Tabac. This is a very 
old song which he learned from his ancestors ; the ceremony being 
done in very ancient times. These songs of Anut were later sung 
in the girls' ceremony. 

Record 412. By :\Iartasal Tabac. Song of Pikniakvul. 
Image ceremony. The women dance while this is sung. The 
song tells how they prepared the ground to burn the body of 
Ouiot, first digging a shallow hole and placing wood there for the 
funeral pile. Then they went around three times and laid the 
body on the pile and started the fire. 



i-"* Pauhit, yellow pine, also eanoe; avahut, Cottonwood. It is said that 
the feathers of San Luis Key were kept in a canoe that was founJ on the 
beach and considered sacred. — S. 

i2» Nahachish, a man of Temecula; the walking-stick insect; consump- 
tion; with a possessive prefix, -nhaeho, plural -nahacho, old age, men, or 
male animals. Nachaonw^ut, glutton, from nachooni, to eat. — S. 

130 See the tradition of Nahachish, below. 

131 Pisatish, a feast where a deer was killed and divided up. — S. 



1908] 



DuBois. — Heligion of tlic L^liscdo Indii 



119 



Record 413. By IMartasal Tabac. Song of Pikmakvul. 
Image ceremony. Oiiiot is very .sick and names the month.s in 
which he may die. After his death, when death came to all, 
these songs were composed. They were made at that tiiiie. A 
notation of this record is given below. 




■i f l'nmi 



E 



jnj'3...rrr; 



m 



l^ll/iL/ *i 



f^m j^ir Jimiimiinj^^m^ 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



RF= 



f?J;:^l,T,l^^Jl ^JJtr 



i ij-aj-[^ \ i: i:J7ii:ni \ mj-} } ^ ^ 



^imfijrn?r.!^mi)\fJiJ-]S7is) 



\ 'i f^n-]zm \ ni }i 



1/ 1 1. ' I. ■ 



i 



Notation of Image Ceremony song. Record 41c 



120 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

Record 414. By IMartasal Tabac. Ashish song. This song 
mentions the man who leads the hunt. "When the men go rabbit 
hunting they meet in a certain place where a stone stands up at 
the side of the road. This song is given in notation below. 



y.i,-jIJ^.Q i ^.^j!: i .^;^i- i j^g 



gj ai i i v i r,j.;Jli^^ i rj |a 'R 



^/■i l ^Ji l ^JfjI.^^ 



m 



| g?^J^lOJ!^m£;^j | -?Jg 



^ 



T]lf]\^^mx:'^ji. 



t I.I L_^LJ!. g^J 



l,^\,^l^\,^[, 



^U^n\^n \ Fn]m\^m 



I '^j:; I ^.=n I -^j:; I ^ m 



/OlH^l^^l lH /^ l ^^'i 



Notation of Ashish song. Record 414. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseno Indians. 121 

Record 415. By Martasal Tabac. Women's Ashish song. 
The men's and women's songs are about the same, but the tunes 
are different. This song mentions the hill where the rock is 
painted after the conclusion of the ceremony. 

Record 416. By Salvador Cueva.s. Temenganesh song. This 
song mentions the stars. When Ouiot was dying he talked about 
the east where he was to rise. The song mentions Niikiilish and 
Yungavish, Antares and Altair. The eagles now fly. This is 
the month Townamal. 

Each man's songs are different from another's, having reached 
him in a strict line of descent; but the subject matter of each 
song series is the same with all. 

Record 1079.^^- Sung by Juan de Dios. Song of Ouiot. 
Image ceremony. 

Record 1080. By Juan de Dios. Song of Ouiot after he was 
burned, sung in the Image ceremony after burning the Images. 

Record 1096. By Juan de Dios. Ouiot song. 

Record 1082. Sung by Margarita Subish. Women's song of 
Ouiot. Pikmakvul series. Ouiot mentions the different months 
in each of which he thinks that he may die. 

Record 1098. By Margarita Subish. Song of Tochinish, 
Image ceremony. Women's song, telling about making the 
images ; sung while they are set up in the sacred enclosure. 

Record 1084. By Margarita Subish. Song of Wukunish, the 
girl's ceremony. Women's song sung to the accompaniment of 
ringing stones. Gives instruction to the girls. 

Record 1085. By Albaiias. Toloache song. After drinking 
the toloache they march to the dancing place, and begin to feel 
the effects of the drink. This song tells of the beginning of the 
intoxication. 

Second song on the record. A Chungichnisli song sung when 
they reach the dancing place. 

Record 1100. Sung by Albaiias. Song of Pikmakvul sung 
in the Image ceremony. Ouiot counts the "months. "'^^ The 

132 The songs on the following thirty records, together with some of the 
Luiseiio myths, were collected with the assistance and co-operation of the 
American Museum of Natural History, through the courtesy of which they 
are here published. The numbers refer to the Museum 's catalogue. 

133 Por an account of these ' ' months, ' ' which are not lunar, see the sec- 
tion on Star Lore and Calendar, below. 



122 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

month Tasmoymal. when the <rrass begins to grow green, is men- 
tioned. 

Record 1076. Creation song of Kivish Atakvish. This song 
does not belong to Albauas who sings it, but to the chief of his 
"clan." It is very sacred. The song tells of Tukmit and Tomai- 
yowit, Sk}' and Earth. 

Record 1100. By Albafias. Ouiot song. Sung to the accom- 
paniment of the rattle. This is what Kingbird sang on the 
housetop in the early morning: "Ouiot is coming." The stars 
NiikiilLsh and Yungavi.sh, Antares and Altair, are mentioned. 

Record 10S8. By Albanas. Song of Tomaiyowit, the Earth- 
mother. There are ten or fifteen songs about Tomaiyowit. They 
dance to some and not to others. This tells of the birth of her 
children. They stayed in that place and then journeyed to an- 
other place. 

Record 1077. B\' Albanas. Ouiot song. This tells about 
Wahawut who killed Ouiot ; and mentions Orion and the Pleiades 
when they went up in the sky. 

Record 1102. Sung by Salvador Cuevas. Song of the dead, 
not used for dancing ; but sung in the Image ceremony ; or when 
relatives come to console the family for the death of a member 
they stay all night and sing this song. It mentions Antares and 
Altair rising in the early morning. When Antares rises winter 
is at an end. Grass and fresh things come up; everything dry 
now grows green. Then when Altair rises the grass is higher. 

Record 1091. By Salvador Cuevas. Coyote kills Wahawut.'" 

Record 1092. By Salvador Cuevas. Song of the dead. This 
mentions Muta, the owl, Ano, coyote, and Pawewish, fox.'^^ They 
always come around the hou.se when some one is going to die. 
The song tells how they are coming nearer and swarming around. 

Record 1078. By Salvador Cuevas. Chungichnish song in 
the extinct language of the coast. This song came from Lukup, 
a large rancheria south of Santa Ana on the coast.''" Pura means 
Chinigichiiish in the old language of the coast. A man named 



i^* See the myth of How Coyote killed the Frog, below. 

136 Ano ' ; Kewewish. — S. 

i3» Lukup, Las Bolsas. See this series of publications, IV, 144. Las 
Bolsas was in territory inhabited by Indians speaking the language of San 
Gabriel. 



1908] DuBois. — Religion of the Luiseno Indians. 123 

Hilario eame from Ushma, now Las Flores,"' where there used 
to be a big village, and taught this song and other songs and 
dances. 

Record 1095. Bj- Salvador Cuevas. Chungichnish dance 
song. This is sung at the time when the feather headdress is 
buried in the center hole of the sand-painting in the ceremony 
performed when one of the initiates dies. The song tells about 
peeheya, the feather headdress, and muta, the owl, whose feathers 
are used to make it. 

Record 1097. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Tutomunp. It re- 
fers to Wikami, Mohave Avikwame, the sacred moiuitain where 
all the people were created and where all religious song and 
dance originated. This place is alluded to at the beginning of 
every ceremony. The song means: There were two brothers. 
The father died and his spirit went north into the pine trees and 
forests. The .sons went after him. When they got there they 
heard the spirit crying. This is the noise in the pine trees. 

Record 1083. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Song of Wukaruk, 
the Image ceremony. The first song on this record means : Two 
brothers were going along when one was bitten by a rattlesnake, 
and died of the bite. The other was afraid of his spirit. It was 
following him and terrifying him. The second song on the 
record means : He came to the track of Coyote. There was the 
Coyote's track. This is a women's song of the Image ceremony. 

Record 1075. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Song of the Image 
ceremony, Wukaruk. When Tuchaipa died through the work of 
the frog, they wanted to make the Image dance and sent to Mai- 
heowit to get him to teach them how. Then they burned the 
sacred house and burned him too. 

Record 1099. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Song of the Image 
ceremony. It tells of Ishpa, the eagle, and describes his feeling 
when he knows that death is near. Compare the Lui.seiio song 
of the eagle, above, number 391. 

Record 1086. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Song of the Image 
ceremony. This tells of Coyote. He slept all night and was 
warming him.self in the early morning. The series of these songs 



137 Usbmai, Las Flores, [ilace of roses, from ush-la, rose. — S. 



124 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

is almost endless, as they are sung all night and for several nights 
during the Image ceremony. Each song is different. It is im- 
possible to collect the entire series or to trace very clearly the 
connection between the songs. The singer, a very old man from 
Manzanita, was sent for far and wide to conduct the Image cere- 
mony on the occasions when it was celebrated. The memory 
displayed in retention of these series of songs is remarkable. 

Record 1087. Diegueiio. By Hatakek. Song of the Image 
ceremony, telling of the great horned deer, probably the elk. 

Record 1104. Diegueno. Sung by Pion. Dance song called 
Orup from the desert Indians. It tells about two brothers build- 
ing their house. 

Record 1089. Diegueno. Sung by Pion. First song on the 
record : Two brothers are building a house. Coyote sings in the 
early morning. The third song on the record tells about the 
willow trees. 

Record 1090. Diegueno. Sung by Pion. Songs of Orup. 
The fir-st song on the record tells about the clouds from the north, 
Katutl ; the south, Kawak ; the east, Awik ; the west. Nyak. The 
second song is a night song, and telLs about the dark night. 

Record 1073. Diegueno. Sung by Hulapok Hitlmiup. Song 
of Akil, the girls' ceremony. The men have bows and arrows in 
their hands and dance as they sing this song. Both men and 
women dance in a circle, at different times, around the place 
where the girl is in a hole in the ground covered with brush. 

Record 1074. Diegueno. Sung by Hulapok. Songs of the 
Image ceremony. Fii-st .song: The man who makes the images 
goes into the house and cries. The second song mentions the 
birds. The bird cries. 

Record 110.3. Diegueno. Sung by Hulapok. Song of the 
wild-cat dance. This dance comes from the Mohaves. It is ac- 
companied by a gourd rattle, hulma. For the Image ceremony 
they use a deer-foot rattle. 

Record 1093. Diegueno. Sung by Hulapok. Song of the 
toloaehe ceremony. The old dancers are seated in a circle on the 
ground, while the chief pounds the toloaehe root in the sacred 
stone bowl to the accompaniment of this song. 

Record 1094. Diegueno. Sung by Hulapok. Toloaehe song. 



1908] DuBois. — Religion of the Liiiserw Indians. 125 

This song is the same as the beginning of the war dance. It also 
repeats part of the last record, which is sung when the dancers 
come in on hands and knees. The singer drank the toloache in 
his youth. The last ceremony at Manzanita was about fifty 
years ago. Five old men remain in this region who are toloache 
initiates. 

Kecord 1072. Diegueiio. Toloache song. Also a war dance 
song. This song is also used at Mesa Grande. Hulapok, the 
singer, first heard this song at a village called Hawiya, south of 
Julian. 

Besides the ceremonial songs, the myths have their own songs, 
which are incorporated in the story as part of the text which 
they amplify and explain, giviug character to the narrative as 
light and shade do to a picture. The story can be told without 
them, but it loses much of its emphasis and impressiven&ss. 

The Cuyahomarr story of which three versions have been 
given: one from Mesa Grande, called The Stoiy of Chaup;^^'^ 
and two, one a fragment, from Manzanita, '^^"'' is a good example 
of a primitive myth in which the narrative is blended with song. 

The Luiseiios have a version of the same story communicated 
to them sixty years ago by the Mesa Grande people.^'''= Some of 
the old men among the Luiseiios can sing its songs, but they 
hesitate to relate the story from the Diegueiio, being uncertain 
of the meaning in parts, especially in the songs. 

One such song was sung to me by Salvador Cuevas, Luiseiio, 
but he was reluctant to begin it, fearing that Takwish, Chaup, 
might overhear him. As Chaup 's dwelling place is in the San 
Bernardino or San Jacinto mountains, not so very far from 
La Jolla in the mountains, the fear seemed well founded. 

The Diegueiios identified the being whose name on earth was 
Cuyahomarr, the wonder-working boy, and whose name in the 
sky is Chaup or Shiwiw, with the large meteoric fire-ball which 
is his physical manifestation. 

Certain Indians, it is said, have an ogre myth-being who is 



isTa Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XVII, 217-241, 1904. 

137b Ibid., XIX, 145-164, 1906. 

137c See ibid., XIX, 317, 318, 1906, for a statement by a Luiseiio inform- 
ant that he knew only the last part of the story of dakwish or takwish, 
Diegueiio Chaup, but that the Diegueiio knew the first part. — Ed. 



126 University of California P'ubUcatio}xs in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

identified in their myths with the electric fireball. The two 
stories have therefore become blended to a certain extent; but 
while the full text of the Diegueiio Cuyahomarr myth has been 
obtained, and some fragments of the ogre story have been secured, 
it has not been possible to trace the latter with precision."'* 

Chaup is feaied among the Luisenos and Dieguenos, but why 
or in what degree it is difficult to say. It is said that the Indians 
believe that if he casts the shadow of a man on the ground in his 
passage overhead, the man will soon die. 

The Lui.sefios sometimes call him Towish Talcwish, which 
means spirit meteor. The younger Indians, who know only the 
corrupted meaning of Towish, which in modern LuLsefio is 'devil,' 
understand it in that sense. 

Takwish, Salvador Cuevas explained, takes the spirit of 
people just before they die. He does not take the body. One 
sees the light because he is carrj'ing the spirit. 

The following are graphophone records of songs of the 
Diegueiio Cuyahomarr m>-th. 

1. From Mesa Grande. Sung by Antonio. The flute is 
making music to call the girls. 

Ichtaha Irvvataha, Ichtaha Invataha, Toll otoli, toli otoli, 
lehtaha kotoho, Ichtaha kwataha, Toli otoli kotoli, Toli otoli 
kotoli, etc. 

The brothers sat down facing in turn towards the north, south, 
east, and west, and girls from the four quarters came to them 
attracted by the music, but none ple;used them except the girls 
from the east. 

2. By Antonio. The girls by the pond first hear the music of 
the flute. "It was the younger sister who first heard the music. 
The girls were on their way to a pond whei-e they used to swim 
ever^' morning." 

:3. By Antonio. The girls' song of farewell to their home. 
They have come veiy far and they can see their home far away. 
"They looked back and saw their old home and sang a song of 
farewell." 

4. Bv Antonio. The old woman. Sinyohauch, or Sinyohau', 



i37d See Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 317, 1906, for Luiseiio beliefs of the 
cannibalistic tendencies of Takwish. 



190S] DuBois. — Religion of the Luiseno Indians. 127 

calls the girls from the east to come and marry her sons. "Wieho- 
kama. wichukama, repeated many times. 

5. By Antonio. The two brothers marry the two sisters. 

6. By Antonio. "We shall die for the sake of the grirls. I 
shall never see my home again. " The elder brother's sous;. 

Cinan ehakom whi-i-i. 

Ocinan ehakom whi-i-i, repeated many times, but the time 
varies. 

Hainan cliakom whi-i-i. 
Kamaina ehakom whi-i. 

7. By Antonio. Cuyahomarr sat on his .CTandmother's lap 
and she put her arm.s around him and they both cried. Antonio 
feels like crying when he sings this : 

Kawa kowa hi-i, Kawa kowa hi, 
Kawa kowa hi-i, Kawa kowa hi, etc. 

8. Manzanita Dieguefio. Sung by Hatakek. First song on 
the record. The younger brother's music on the flute. Second 
song, that of the elder brother making music on the flute. Third 
song, that of the younger sister who is tired and lagging behind. 
" ' I can come no faster, ' said the younger sister. ' I am thinking 
of my old father whom I left behind. ' ' ' 

9. Manzanita Diegueiio. Sung by Haiakek. First song on 
record. Sinj-ohauch sings to call the dead eagles to come to life 
and come to the boys' home. Second song. The elder brother 
sings to call the girls. 

Third song on the record. The song of the brothers when the 
whirlwind lifted the eagles out of their graves. "Xo sooner had 
they buried the birds than the whirlwind swept by, lifting the 
dead eagles from out of the ground, and carrying them througli 
the air."'"« 

10. Diegueiio song sung by a Luiseno. Salvador Cuevas. who 
does not know exactly what the words mean ; but it is the song 
sung by the boy in the gambling game when he began to win back 
all that his uncle had lost. "As soon as he fixed his eyes upon 
him he made his uncle win. He began winning back every point 
he had lost." See ilanzanita version of Cuvahomarr storv.'^'' 



"rejourn. Am. Folk-Lore, XVII, 217-241, 1904. 
137£ Ibid., XIX, 145-164, 1906. 



128 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 



MYTHS. 

It is a noticeable fact, and one not unimportant scientifically, 
that each old man discredits the stories and authority of the other. 
Cinon Duro of iMesa Grande, Diegneiio, who has lately died, was 
the last of the hereditarj' chiefs. Juan de Dies of La Jolla, 
Luiseiio, if not partly demented by age, would be an authority, 
as he used to be leader of ceremonies in his pueblo. Apolonio 
of Rincon is still leader of ceremonies, and a devoted adherent 
of the old religion. Salvador Cuevas still leads ceremonies, but 
more from lack of any better authority than from his own ability 
to do so. He claims to know everything, having learned from 
the old men the things that were still in force when he was a boy. 
There is no doubt that he is one of the few authorities now living. 
At the same time, the disuse of things once vital, now mere 
memories, renders it lancertain how valid are the claims of each 
when they conflict. Salvador says that Jose Albanas knows 
nothing. The admirers of Albaiias doubt Salvador's memory. 
Lucario Cuevish claims that he is best informed. 

The important thing in this connection is that it further illus- 
trates the strong differentiation of family groups shown also in 
the hereditary possession of songs. I have suggested that in 
the past these divisions may have been elans of some sort. The 
stories have also descended in families with more or less distinct- 
ness, not nearly so marked as in the case of the songs, as no one 
could claim a story. The tendency to variation in the myths is, 
I think, explained by the segregation into gi'oups, which is the 
only marked organization of which traces can be found. 

LUISENO CREATION. 

Third Version.''" — By Salvador Cuevas. 



138 Two versions, of the Luisefio creation myth, one a fragment, have 
been publisheJ. Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 145, 1906. See also ibid., 
.310. The two versions herewith given, which are probably more primitive 
and more complete, were related by Salvador Cuevas and Lucario Cuevish, 
aged Indians of La Jolla and Potrero in the mountains. 



190S] DvBois. — Religion of the Luisem Indians. 129 

Everj'thing in the beginning was empty and quiet. Kivisli 
Atakvish^^" "° was the only being. 

Next came Whaikut Piwknt"' (whitish gray, unexplained). 

Whaikut Piwkut created two objects like great round balls 
called ilaikuniku.sh"- (meaning, something round, not having an 
end). 

They lay there three daj-s and then were made alive, brought 
into being, after which they recognized each other. They were 
called Soimal-um^*^ (-um being the plural ending). They were 
male and female. "Whaikut Piwkut, being the father of these 
two, left them and was no more seen. 

The two children (created beings) remained there. When 
they were by themselves, they quarreled : "I am older than 
you." "No, I am older than you." Each could read the 
thoughts of the other and this contention continued. The female 
being said that she was the older. She was Kivish Atakvish. 
The male began describing the color of the sky, by this to prove 
his earlier existence. "See, I am older than you." She got a 
stone smoking pipe, ehahal,"* and showed it to prove herself the 
first. He got three kinds of pipes, kalulmul, nyatlumul, and chet- 
mul,"^ and held them up, and thus he silenced her and won 
(in this contention). Then with sighs (guttural breathings used 
in solemnities), he made her sleep, and after this she knew that 
she was to be a mother. He was ashamed of his deed, and went 
up in the sky {i.e., became the sky). He was Tukmit,"" the Sky. 



139 Luiseno religious terms are double, made of two words, each with a 
different meaning supplementing and reinforcing each other — a very marked 
peculiarity. 

no Kyuvish, empty, solitary, unoccupied; also a noun, as in po-up auma 
kyuvi-nga, he lives in solitude. Atax\-ish (s German eh), empty. Kyuvish 
Ataxvish, used together, mean some thing like the empty, solitary, unoccu- 
pied place, and are used in speaking of before the world was created. 
Kyuvish Ataxvish is also spoken of as a person who made Tamayowut, the 
first woman, and Tukomit, the first man. — S. 

m From whaiahat, white, piwahat, whitish, grayish. — S. 

H2 Makumkush, round. — S. 

143 Saimalum. Some say these were a man and a woman born from two 
eggs made by Whaikut Piwkut; others deny this. — S. 

1" Hahal, stone pipe. 

1*5 Kalulmal, ngatlamal, chetmal. There is only one man who knows of 
these words. 

lis Tukomit, night, also the first man, made by Kyuvish Ataxvish; tu- 
pash is sky. — S. 



130 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and FAhn. [Vol. 8 

When she found she was to brintr forth, she was making ready. 
She made the same sort of sighinjr proans and thereby created a 
small piece of land. There was no hind until then. 

Then the first born of her children, the First People, came 
forth in the following order. 

1. Topal Tamyuslt.^*' Double name. Topal, ordinary stone 
grinding mortar; tamyush, sacred toloache bowls of stone; but 
in this sense tamyush is like an adjective qualifjnng topal. 
Museums should classify the stone bowls more carefully, differ- 
entiating between the two sorts where possible. 

2. Kenhut Paviut."^ Double name. Kenhut, strings of 
wampum-like beads used for money; paviut, sacred stone knife 
larger than an arrowhead set on the end of a staff for ceremonial 
purposes. Both of the.se objects were used as money, that is. 
carried from one village to the other to pay for the services of 
those performing the ceremonies. When two words are con- 
nected thus in a double term, there is always some such similarity 
of use, meaning, or purpose. This is a very remarkable pecu- 
liarity, more metaphysical than linguistic. 

3. Hunwut Ashwut.^*^ Hunwut, bear: ashwut, eagle. The 
connection is that both belong to Chungichnish. 

These above named were those of the First People who were 
afterwards sent north, excepting the two latter, which the infor- 
mant evidently transposed from their proper place, and instead 
of them there should come here in third position : 

4. Kimul Chehenish.^'"'' Kimul is the mast with baskets hung 
on top in the Noti.sh ceremony for the dead. The pole is climbed 
as a contest of skill. If no one can get the baskets, they dig 
about the pole to make it fall. When the kimul is set up, they 
sing songs for the dead and dance. They have this ceremony in 
the north. They never had it here in the mountains. Chehenish 
is the pole before it is painted and hung with baskets. 



1*' Topal, tamvush. — S. 

us KcDghut, a string of shells or bear-claws; paviut, stick with a crystal 
in one eml, useil in ceremonies. — S. 

no Hunwut, ashwut. — S. 

150 Kimal, small house; chehenish, the objects hung on kutumit, the pole 
erected at the notush ceremony; probably a derivative from chehe'i, to 
appear, show. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Lxdscno Indians. 131 

5. MaJiul KwichaU^'^ Mahiil, palm tree; ]r\viehal, Spanish 
bayonet, yucca. These were sent East. 

6. Tukvul Wekunla.^'"- Tukvul, carrying net ; wekunla. sort 
of carrying sack. These were sent Sonth. 

7. Somal Kachamiil. Meaning- unknown. Sent South. 

8. Makivit Awiwunoivut.^'^^ ilakwit. wild grape; awiwuno- 
wut, clematis. Sent to the center. 

9. Paulovla TovolwishP* These were sent East. Paulovla 
is a tall painted mast in the middle of the sacred inclosure used 
by the Indians in the East, who got it from the Fir.st People. 
Tovolwish means the color of this painted post. 

10. JJutisli Kahankish. Uutish, tree that grows in the East; 
kahankish, unknown. Sent East. 

11. Pauhut Abahut}'^'" Pauhut, canoe (also a box hollowed 
out of a log to keep things in) ; abahut, Cottonwood tree out of 
which it is made. Sent West. 

12. Pevesish Hoyoivish}^" Pevesish, tule; hoyowish. cat-tail 
rush. Sent West. 

13. Sanut Tanahut}" Sanut, black asphalt on the seashore; 
tanahut, sea-weed. Sent West. 

14. Yuamul Tovoymid}^^ Tuamul, pine tree; tovoymul, ce- 
dar. Sent to the center, i.e., where "we" live, the Mountain In- 
dians. 

15. Kwila Sukut.'^'''' Kwila. oak with edible acorns; sukut, 
deer (both used for food). Sent to the center. 

And here should probably come Hunut Ashwut, in the center 
instead of to the North. 



151 Mahul, palm; kwichal, unknown; the species of yucca growing in tlie 
San Luis Eey valley are called panal and hunuvut. — S. 

152 Tukval is sea-otter; the carrying net is called ikut; wekunla, net- 
work sack with very fine mesh. — S. 

153 Makwit, wild grape-vine; awiwanawut, clematis. — S. 

154 Paulovla, ( ?) ; tovoh-ush or tovolovahat, adjective meaning of differ- 
ent colors. — S. 

155 Pauhit, yellow pine, also dug-out canoe ; avahut, eottonwood tree. It 
is said that the feathers of San Luis Eey were kept in a canoe found on the 
beach and considered sacred. — S. 

156 Pevesash, tule ; hoyawish, species of rush. — S. 

157 Shanut, asphalt, gum; tanahut, sea-weed. — S. 

158 Yuila, species of pine, tovut, cedar; yuimal and tovomal are diminu- 
tives. — S. 

159 Kwila, Quercus calif ornica ; shukut, deer. — S. 



132 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

(Here belongs the song sung by Tomaiyowit, the Earth- 
mother, to make the land larger for her children, as pre^nously 
given in the description of phonograph record 405.) 

The Earth-mother sent these first-born of her children to the 
North, South, East, West, and Center. After this everj-thing 
else -was brought forth. The sun came forth at the same time, 
and as he was there among all the rest of the people, he gave so 
much light and heat that he nearly killed them all. It would be 
better to send him away. So they sent him to the east, and in 
three days he rose in the east. All things were now prepared. 
Before this all had been confusion and disturbance, but now 
Tomaiyowit lay back outstretched, her feet to the north, her head 
to the south, her right hand to the east, her left hand to the west, 
and everything became quiet.'"" 

This ends the first part of the Creation Storj-."' 

The Earth-mother, when she sent her children to all the four 
quarters of the world, made feathers for them to wear on their 
heads. The chief men, the best, quickest and bravest in battle, 
used to wear them on a long stick high on their heads, and the 
others wore them close to the head. 

While the people were traveling along, carrjing arrows, they 
would stop at a pond to play and swim about. Ouiot was travel- 
ing along with the rest and they did not know an\-thing especial 
about him. He was like one of the rest. 

Wahawut'"- was a handsome fine-looking woman, with long 
hair. When she jumped into the water, Ouiot was surprised to 
see that behind she had no flesh on her body, but was flat and 
thin. He said nothing but was thinking about it. Wahawut 
could read his thoughts, and made her plans to kill him. Soon 
he fell sick. 

Ouiot got sick and said he wanted to see his sons. At this 
time he acted to the people like a father. Before this he had only 



100 This is why all ceremonies are performed facing the north. Cf. the 
drawing by a Luiseiio in Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 312, 1906. 

1"! Another old Indian story teller here appeared on the scene and some 
tact was necessary to manage the situation. It was feared that Salvador 
might object to the presence of a rival; but when asked if he were willing 
to continue his recitation he smiled and said that there need be no jealousy 
as he told nothing but the truth. So he continued. 

JO- Wahawut, frog, an ugly woman that bewitched and killed Wiyot. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Liiiseiio Indians. 133 

been a person like the others. Now he called for his sons (the 
First People) from the north to come and see him, and they 
all tried to cure him. They were like witches then, and could tell 
by looking at him what was the matter; and they all tried their 
best to cure him, but could give no help, so they went back north. 
In the same way the people came in turn from the south, east, 
west, and center, but could do nothing. TishmeP*^^ the humming- 
bird was an important person then and he went to see if he could 
find out what was the matter. Sakapipi,^"* who is now a tiny 
bird, got up and put his ear to Ouiot's heart so that he could hear 
his breathing, and then he said it was Wahawut who was work- 
ing to kill him by witchcraft. 

Then the people found out that it was "Wahawut who was 
doing this; but she had gone down into the mud and water and 
never was seen. Since she began to work against Ouiot she stayed 
there. (No. This is not the place in the story to explain that 
she was the frog, for she was a person then. They were all peo- 
ple at that time.) 

Ouiot told them that he would not live much longer. "I 
think I shall die soon," he said, and he mentioned the names of 
all the months, and each month they waited until the time was 
up. "I may die in this month." 

When Ouiot was sick, he told his people to take him to the hot 
spring at Pawi Chawimai^"'' (Cahuilla), and they took him there, 
and he bathed in the waters, but did not get any better. On the 
contrary he grew worse and worse. Then they took him to Kupa 
Kawima'^' (Agua Caliente, Warner's Ranch Hot Springs), then 
to Paska Mahala,^"' a little further on, then to Pauma, near Pala. 
When there he died but revived again. They got ready to burn 
his body, making use of the same sticks with which they clubbed 
Coyote. When he revived again, they took him to Malama Eka- 
pa^^' (Agua Tibia), trying all these hot springs to cure him, but 



163 Tushmal.— S. 

i«* Sakapepi, titmouse, who found out who had killed Wiyot. — S. 
i«5 Cf. notes 84 and 120. 
166 Cf . notes 85 and 120. 

16T Paskwa, San Jose, on upper San Luis Key river, given in this series 
of publications, II, 148, as in Diegueno territory. 

16S JIalamai, Agua Tibia. — S. ; ibid., this series, II, 147. 



134 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

they did no good. Then they took him to Cherukanukna Jaqui- 
wTina.'"" near Temecula, to the hot spring there.*'" Then to 
Etengvo Wumoma,*"' hot springs at Elsinore, and this was the 
last place, for he died there."* 

Before Ouiot died he told Chehemal (the kingbird now)'"' 
that he was going to die, but he said he would come back, and 
told him that in three days he would rise in the east.''* Kauki 
Chahiwul,''"' something gone that comes again. Ovaweleva, some- 
thing that will come back, disappears and returns. 

He died in the season Soimamul mokat. When he died the 
people wanted to burn his body, and they sent Coyote to the north 
to the people there to see if he could get fire ; but he only went a 
little way and came back. Then they sent him to the people of 
the east, Uutish Kahankish, and so on. and in the same way to the 
people of the west, the south, and the center. Each time he went 
a little further off, and while he was gone Sariwut,'" the bluefly, 
made the fire with the fire-drill. *'' Then Coyote came running 
back yelling and saying: "AVhy do you plaj' such a trick on me? 
I want to see my father. ' ' 

The people all stood around the fire where only the heart was 
left unburned, and Coyote starting a little way back took a run- 
ning jump over their heads. Wiskun, now a tiny squirrel, the 
chipmunk, was the strongest man then, and he had gone and 
brought a log ten men could not lift. Ouiot was laid on it. All 
the body was burned but the bones, after Coyote got the heart.'" 



1118 Cheruka, locative Cherukanga, large rock near Potrero; also one near 
Temecula. — S. 

1"" A few mile-s the other side of the railroad station near Murietta. 

I'lEtengvo; Mumoma. — S. 

1"- The names of all these places are mentioned in the Ouiot songs. 

I's Chehemal, kingbird or bee martin. — S. Given in Journ. Am. Folk- 
Lore, XIX, 313, 1906, as chckhemal, a bird, possibly the meatlowlark. — Ed. 

174 Perhaps a trace of Christian influence. — But compare the incident in 
»6id.— Ed. 

i"" Kauki chehevo, said to be the name of a place. 

170 Shariwut, blowfly.— S. 

177 Albaiias. commenting on Salvador's story, says that the idea of the 
fire being started by Bluefly with the whirling-stick came to these Indians 
from some other source, he thinks from the north. Juan de Dios gives the 
Bluefly as originator of the fire. Albafias in his version leaves it in doubt 
as to where it came from, but he evidently approves Lucario 's statement 
that it was Glow-worm who had the fire. 

178 Coyote jumped over the heads of the people into the fire to seize the 
heart of Ouiot, which he ate. 



1908] DuBois. — Beligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 135 

When the three days were up, Chehemel got on his housetop 
in the dark and sang and everyone listened. Meaning of the 
song: "Ouiot, Ouiot is coming. He is coming. I am watching 
for him, loolcing to the east. Ouiot is coming." 

Pretty soon he did come, as the new moon, Moyla achagha.^'* 
They could just barely see it, a little line. Chehemel saw it in the 
east, but no one else could see it there. The others saw it in the 
west. 

Before Ouiot died, he told them when they saw him, the new 
moon, in the west, they should get together and make races (as an 
answer to the moon, giving their spirits to it). If they made 
these races, and .shouted at this time, they would live longer. 
(This means that as a part of the Chungiehnish ceremonial, obed- 
ience is required, and reward or punishment promised for that or 
the reverse, as in all the Chungiehnish instruction.) After this 
they always made these races. Salvador remembers them, sixty 
years or so ago, when he was a boy. 

The chief men who had charge of these things would know 
when the new moon was expected and would watch for it. Then 
they would get ready, and just as soon as the moon appeared one 
man would start a fire and shout, and all would come together. 
They would shout three times, and then all start together in a 
straight line, side by side, and run until the fastest runner got 
ahead of the others, when he cut across in front of them, and that 
was the end of it. There might be from twenty to fifty who did 
the running. They made the indescribable guttural invocation 
to send their spirits to the moon, and they had to have a fire as 
they did in every religious ceremony. The head men always 
started the fire, and the long ceremonial pipes they smoked were 
lighted at it. 

At the time Ouiot died he did not talk much, but only told 
them about the races they should have. But after he died the 
people held a council, and talked it over among themselves to 
decide what they could do. Some of the people had gone north, 
south, east, and west, and some had gone up in the sky or down 
in the ground. So they considered what they could do. Some 



179 Moila, moon; achohax (x German ch), adjective, born; achohahup 
moila, it is born moon, there is a new moon. — S. 



136 Vniiersity of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

thought they could do the same as Ouiot, die for a time and then 
come back ; but they could not do this. Some thought the deer 
would be good to eat. They could kill him and have a gathering 
and have that meat to eat. They spoke to Deer about it, but he 
said, No. He was a shaman and very powerful. He had some- 
thing in his nose like the black asphalt on the seashore,^'*" and this 
would protect him.'*' They gave up killing him when he said 
that. 

Then they laid on the ground one of the sacred stones,"- 
wiala, enormous crystals, and said they could kill him with them. 
But Deer said, No, he had some of that too, and they could not 
kill him with them.'*' Then they laid down one of the eagle- 
feather skirts, Pahlut,'** and said they could kill him with that. 
He said, No, he had some of that too.'*^' Then they put down 
tobacco, Pivat, and said they could kill him with that. Deer 
said. No, he had some of that too, and they could not kill him 
with that.'*" 

Then they laid down some "wild bamboo," the kind that 
grows at Warner's Ranch and they use for arrows, huikish,'*" and 
said they could kill him with that. He showed them that the 
bones in his nostrils were like that, and said they could not kill 
him with it. 

Then they laid down arrows already made with Hint points 
fastened to them ; so then he had no more to say. He gave up. 
So they killed him with bow and arrows, and ever since the people 
have used them to kill the deer: and they skinned him and took 
the bones of the leg for awls to make baskets. They gave them 
to Wahawut, — not the one that killed Ouiot, — and she made a 
good-sized basket in which to collect the bones of Ouiot, and after 
that they always used the baskets in ceremonies. And they killed 

180 Sacred as a Chunjriehnish ob.icct, and one of the First People. 

181 The shiny black on the deer 's nose is like that. 

18= Two of these stones I have seen are of white crystalline rock in round 
shape ten inches or so in diameter, others of clear quartz ( f ) crystal, ten 
inclies long. — Wiyala, rock crystals. — S. 

183 The white fat of the deer looks like that. 

i84Pa'lut.— S. 

185 The deer 's entrails are like that. 

186 There is some bushy hair on the deer's hind leg near the joint that 
smells like tobacco. 

187 Huikish, Etymus condensatus, from which arrows are made. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseno Indians. 137 

other animals besides the deer. They killed acorns, — they were 
people then, — and killed all that they now have to eat. These 
turned into animals and seeds, acorns and plants. 

Eagle was a big man, a great "hechicero," then, and they told 
him they would kill him to have ceremonies. But he said. No, it 
was not right. He was a person of importance. When they told 
Eagle they were going to kill him, he thought he could get away 
from them, for he was very wise and knew a great deal. So he 
went north, thinking that from there he could get entirely away 
from this world, reach its limits and fly away; and he tried it 
everj^vhere, but could not do it. He thought he could live for- 
ever and keep away from death, but there was death, Pikmak- 
vul,^*' wherever he went. Then he went east and did the same 
thing, and south and west the same, and then he came home to the 
center and stayed there. He had to die. There was no death 
before this time. 

By this time the people's council was concluded. "Wahawut 
had finished her basket. ^'° She had been working all the while 
and had lost no time. So they gathered the bones and put them 
in the basket to cany them, and they put the bones into a stone 
mortar and ground them, and added water and made it into 
a kind of mush. When all was well mixed they made a hole in 
the ground and poured it into the hole and buried it. The 
crushed bones were not contained in any vessel.^"" They made 
the solemn guttural invocation with waving motions to the north 
and all the other points of the compass, to send Ouiot's spirit up 
to the sky ; and since then the people do the same thing when they 
have the ceremonies for the dead.^^^ 

When the people scattered from the place where Ouiot died, 
all the tribes had names, but many are dead and few living. He 



188 cf. ante, under "Ceremonial Songs," records number 391 and 410. 
1S9 Note the different statements in each story as to who was the first 
basket-maker, showing a possible family descent in stories, as is the ease in 



100 I have not found among the Luisenos any allusion to the burial ollas 
for containing the bones and ashes of the cremated body so common among 
the Diegueuos. 

181 In former times they burned the bodies of the dead. Salvador, sev- 
enty-five years old, never saw this, but his grandfather did. They burned 
the bodies in a certain place, digging holes in which they made the fire and 
burying the ashes in the same place. 



138 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. ["Vol.8 

does not know the name of this tribe. These Indians (the Luis- 
enos) are called by themselves Western Indians.'*- "When they 
scattered, the people traveled about, two or three families to- 
gether, and they claimed the places where thej' stopped for a 
time,"^ and a great deal of fighting came from this. Other 
groups coming after would occupy the land claimed by the fii-st. 
The La Jolla people would fight the Potrero people. A man 
could not go from La Jolla to San Jacinto without being killed 
by some enemy. 



LUISENO CREATION. 

Fourth Version — By Lucario Cuevish.^"* 

The first that came or appeared was Kivish, the man, Atak- 
vish, the woman."" 

Then Omai, the man, Yamai, the woman."" 

When the two beings found themselves there, realized the 
exi.stence of each other, the brother and sister each said to the 
other, "Who are you?" 

The man called her sister. But when the thought of marry- 
ing her came to him, he changed the form of address and spoke 
to her in a different way. The woman asked, "Who are j'ou?" 

He answered, ' ' Kivish no, Kivish no, Kivish no, Han-n-n-n-n. 
(I am Kivish, I am Kivish, I am Kivish, groan used in sacred 
narrative and ceremonies)." 

The man asked, ' ' What have you to say ? ' ' 

She answered, "Atakvish no, Atakvish no, Atakvish no. Han- 
n-n-n. ' ' 

The inquiries being repeated, he said, "Omai no, Omai no, 
Omai no, Han-n-n-n." 

She said, "Yamai no, Yamai no, Yamai no, Han-n-n-n." 

There was now a transition impossible to explain. 



102 It i8 remarkable that the DiegiieSos as far south as Manzanita also 
use this name in their language for themselves. 

I0.1 Sec the account of the nuinival, or songs of landmarks, below. 
'"< An old man, blind from his youth. 

!»!> See the preceding version for names not commented upon here. — Ed. 
106 Omai, to not be, said of animate things; yamai, same, inanimate. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseiio Indiuns. 139 

Wliaikut Piwkiit was the man, the sky or Milky Way, whitish- 
gray. Harurai Chatutai'"" was the woman, the earth. 

Another transition and they became Tukmit, the sky, Tomai- 
yowit, the earth. These came after and from the previous states 
of existence, but were not born of them as their children. 

The woman lay extended, her feet to the north, her head to 
the south. Her brother sat on the right hand by her side. "Sis- 
ter, you must say who you are," he said. She answered, "I am 
Tomaiyowit." She asked, "Who are you?" He answered, "I 
am Tukmit." Tomaij-owit now, in a marvelous recitative, enum- 
erates her attributes which it is distinctly explained do not be- 
long to her but are prophetic of the completed state of being 
which is to come later."* 

"Non Obkit, non Opaykit, I am that which stretches out flat 
or is extended (from horizon to horizon)."^ 

"Non Yaramul, non Kworamul, I am that which shakes, and 
sounds with a loud noise, like thunder.-"" 

"Non Tinkit, non Yenankit,""^ I am the earthquake. 

"Non Punkit, non Choykit,-"- I am that which rolls around 
and is round in shape. 

"Non Manakit,-"^ I am that which goes out of sight and ap- 
pears again." After things were in shape it would be this way. 

Then Tukmit spoke : 

"Non Tukmit, non Pamkit, I am that which arches over like 
a round lid or cover.-"* 



197 Harurai chatutai ; this plirase speaks of boring a hole and lowering. 
— S. 

188 Hueh in this mythology is abstraction, belonging to the domain of 
metaphysics. Transition in character of being or condition, while identity 
or continuity is asserted, and the latent possession of attributes to be mani- 
fested in future time in the external order of Nature, are ideas above the 
ordinary. 

199 Non obkit, non opoikit, I am stretched out. This and the following 
sentences were spoken to Tukomit by Tamaiyowut, it is said. — S. 

200 Non yaramul, non kwomamul; meaning, that shakes and makes noise. 
— S. 

-01 Non inkit, non ngenankit; from ini, to deduct, take off, and ngeni, 
to be an earthquake. — S. 

202 Non punkit, non chorkit ; from puni, to go around, and chori, to 
roll.— S. 

203 Non mane 'kakit, I disappear. — S. 

204 Tukomit speaking to Tamaiyowit : Non Tukomit, non pemkit. Pem- 
kit from pemi, to be upside down. — S. 



140 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

"Non Yumkit, same meaning. -"' 

"Xon Hetkit, non Kariamul, I am .something that goes up 
high, and will rise high.^"* 

"Xon Somkit, non Paikit, I am death, that which will devour 
as if by taking all in, in one bite.^"' 

"Non Hakwit, non Lamkit, I am he that from the east catches 
the spirits of men and sends them away off. 

"Non Wokumal, non Chorumal,""* I am death."-'"' 

They said all this while she lay there and he sat by her side. 
It was in darkness, but he felt her and took her right hand. 
"Wliat part of your body is this?" "That is my right hand." 
"And this?" "My left hand." In the same way he felt and 
she named her head, hair, the parting of the hair, the skull, the 
temple, brows, eyelids, cheek bones, teeth, etc. This is an ex- 
tremelj' long enumeration, ending in that part of the story which 
the narrator omits from motives of delicacy, but which Boscana 
gives briefly in his version of the same m>i:h among the San Juan 
Capistrano Indians as follows: "The brother wished to marrj- 
the sister but she resisted, reminding him of their affinity. In 
due time, however, they were married." 

She was with child and so large that she must lie down, fall- 
ing backwards. She looked for something to help her, and Tuk- 
mit to deliver her took Si^Tit paviut, the sacred stick with flint 
knife inserted in the end of it, and with this he cut her open from 
between the breasts downward. (Groaning recitative.) Then 
came forth her children in the order of their birth. 

1. Yula Nahut. Tula, spirit, literally, hair; nahut possibly 
should be wanawut. Yula wanawut is the sacred string used in 
connection with the toloache ceremony and sand-painting.-*" 

2. Chakivut Wakut. Chakwut. a woven basket carried on the 
end of a cane bv the men and used to cover the faces of the girls 



205 Non yumkit ; perhaps related to yumu 'i, to put on a hat. — S. 
200 Non ketkit, non kareamul ; perhaps from the verbs heti and kare 'i, 
to rise. — S. 

20- Non shomkit, non pakit ; from shomi, to devour, pai, to drink. — S. 
209 Non wokamul, non choramul; woki, to cut; chori, to cut, cut off. — S. 

209 These words are used in the fiestas for the dead, and are always the 
final words. 

210 Nahut is waking-stick, cane. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Ecligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 141 

to keep the flies from them"'^ in their puberty ceremony.-'- Wa- 
kut, curved throwing stick for killing rabbits.-'^ 

3. Nosish Ayaraka. Nosish, the red scum on iron springs. 
This was sacred because it was .skimmed off, burnt, and used for 
red paint in the sand-painting and elsewhere. Ayaraka, the 
green scum, fresh-water algae, that appears on water when To- 
maiyowit, the Earth-mother, has her men.ses.-'* 

4. Pala Yowhala. Pala, water; yowhala, mud.-" 

5. Ushla Pilda. Ushla, wild roses; pikla, wild blackberry. 
Almost all, if not all, thorny, stinging things belonged to Chung- 
iclmi.sh, being his avengers. -''' 

6. Nenexel Pachayel. Nenexel is a brush that grows on the 
mountains ; pachayel is a sedge or plant that grows in wet places, 
the root of which makes large clumps. -'' They were sacred be- 
cause they were the plants used in the girls' ceremony to cover 
them with or to line the hole, or both. 

7. Simut, double not given. Simut is salt grass on the sea- 
shore.-''^ 

8. Podia Poasl;atu. Both words mean menses.-'" 

These were the first born. Then came forth all the hills, 
trees, stones, rocks, and ever\-thing that we now see on the earth, 
but all were people then. There were born, not given as doubles : 

9. Hunal, the badger. 

10. Tungavish, the buzzard, and meaning also the star Altair. 

11. Takivish, the large meteor sometimes seen in the daytime, 
Diegueiio Chaup or Shiwiw. 

12. Chonnvut, an underground animal that has never been 
seen, but which can be heard growling and shaking the stones in 
certain places in the mountains.--" 



211 If analogy with the customs of other California tribes holds, it was 
primarily for the purpose of concealing the face of the girl, or hiding the 
world from her sight to prevent its being harmed by the supernatural power 
in her. — Ed. 

212 Cha'kwiit, a rush basket. — S. 

213 Wakut, throwing stick. — S. 

2n Jloshish, oxide of iron from springs ; ayaraka, pond-scum. — S. 
215 Pala, water, yuwhala, mud. — S. 

21C Ushla, wild rose; pikwlax (x German ch), blackberry. — S. 
21- Kenexyal (x Spanish), tussock grass; pachayal or pachayat, a coarse 
grass or sedge. — S. 

218 Shimut, salt grass; shamut, grass of any kind. — S. 

219 Poaulo, her menstruating; poashkato, same. — S. 

220 Chorwut, a water animal. — S. 



142 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

13. Toivish, the spirit. When a man dies he becomes Tow- 
ish.=" 

14. Kwila, an oak tree with edible acoms.--- 

15. Pauhwhut Abaivhut. Pauhwhut, a painted board about 
four feet long, kept hidden in the house. If anyone is siek, pun- 
ished by Chunpichnish. they get it out and lay it on the ground 
in ceremonie.s.-'-' Abauhwhut or Abawhut. definition obscure. 

16. Kimiil Chehcnishj--* definition given obscure. 

17. Poblish, a tree.--' 

18. Isla, a person.--" 

19. Masla, a fern.=-' 

Then came forth the avengers and special messengers of 
Chungichnish. 

20. Sowut, the "black" rattlesnake.^-' 

21. Mekus, the "yellow" rattlesnake.--" 

22. The spider. 

23. Palahush, the tarantula."" 

24. Au-ialut, the raven."" 



2-1 The Catholic Indians, learning of the devil, identified him with 
Towish and still have songs and charms drawn on the ground as a form of 
exorcism, but these are modern and not genuinely Indian. The primitive 
Luiseiios and Diegueiios appear to have had no idea in any way approach- 
ing this. They seem to have learned their fear of Takwish, the meteor, 
from the Cahuillas, though this is not certain. They sometimes combine the 
names, Towish Takwish. The Chungichnish religion was a religion of fear, 
as its exacting ceremonial if not obeyed would bring punishment from the 
many avengers of Chungichni.sh, but it does not seem that this fear was 
ever concentrated in one being until the priests taught them to identify 
'Towish' with 'devil.' The old narrator has separated his double names in 
this part, and has perhaps forgotten some. As all the sacred and ceremonial 
objects were firstborn [)eople, it is no wonder that each narrator gives a 
different list and forgets many. 

Touch, given by Boscana, pronounced To-ush, is not far from Towish. 
Boscana defines the word as "devil" which is the modern Indian significance 
of Towish, the original meaning being spirit. Tacuieh, as given by Boscana, 
defined as meteoric appearance, is evidently a misprint for Tacuieh, pro- 
nounced Takwish. 

--' Kwila, Quercns californica. — S. 

223 Cf. no. 11 in the list of the first born in the preceding myth. 

22* Cf. no. 4 in the list of the first born in the preceding myth. 

225 Pavlash, mountain ash. — S. 

226 Isla, a plant. — S. 

227 Xashla, large brake fern. — S. 

228 Showut.— S. 

220Me'kash, generally called red rattlesnake. — S. 

230 Pulakwush, the tarantula-hawk, a large insect. Tarantula is mona- 
wut.— S. 

231 Kawialwut, raven. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the LuiseSio Indians. 143 

25. Hunwut, the bear. 

26. Wulamul, the stingaree."^^ 
Then the sacred objects : 

27. Tulimul. the flat winnowinc: basket sacred to Chnngieh- 
nish, placed upon the ground in the ceremonies. 

28. Somkul Papaicish. Somkul, urine; papawish, mock- 
orange plant, also called Naxish.^^' These two names make a 
double because in the ceremonies when the stone bowls and so on 
were placed upon the ground, urine was sprinkled over them with 
the branch of the mock-orange plant. -^* 

29. Topal Tamyush.-^'' 

The raven was the especial messenger of Chungichnish and 
was able to tell the secret transgressions of those who offended 
against him, revealed the secrets, made mistakes in the ceremon- 
ies, or disobej-ed the rules of life; but it was not everyone who 
could hear what the raven said. It was only the shamans of 
greatest power, those who could hear and see everything and kill 
a person at a distance. 

Tukmit and Tomaiyowit now made the land, only a small 
piece at first. Then later they made it larger just as it is now. 
Everything now came into shape ju.st as it had been named and 
planned in the conversation between Tukmit and Tomaiyowit. 
Everything was all in the dai-k. The Fir.st People could just feel 
each other but could see nothing. 

They traveled east till they came to Epyuvokala Putwalakala, 
a place that was just like a blank wall in front of them ;"^^ so they 
turned around and came back to the same place. 

Then they came to Kawima-'" Putlalak,"'' near San Bernar- 
dino, where they got to a caiion that they could not go through. *'° 



232 Wulamul, stingray. — S. 

233 Shomkul, a sea fish ; papaiwish, urine, more polite than shiish ; nehish, 
mock orange. — S. 

234 This would seem to the Christian priests the devil's derision of holy 
water. It long antedates the arrival of the priests. 

235 See number 1 in the list of the first born in the preceding myth. 

236 Poyuvakala, it growing dark, from yavi ; potowalakala, it beginning 
to grow dark. — S. 

237 Kawima, little hill. — Kawimai. — S. 

238 Poxlalah (x German ch), his climbing, from verb elali. — S. 

239 See song record 407 above. 



144 University of California Publicalions in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

Then they came along by Elsinore, and stopped there, and made 
the lake that is there.-*" They traveled as far as Temeeula, called 
Ekva Temeko, and stopped by a small lake that used to be there, 
but it is drained out and dried up now. 

Then they began to think, to gain consciousness, and could 
now talk to each other, and discuss what it was best to do. Now 
Hainit-'" Yuinit-''- made the sun. This means something way 
down in the ground.-*' 

This man, when he made the sun, took the reddish milkweed 
plant that twine is made of, and twisted the fibres of it into twine, 
and out of that made a net, not an ordinary carrying net. but a 
long one. Then he called all the people and they got together in 
a place near Temeeula.-** He took the net that was all rolled up, 
and with groaning invocation he laid it on the ground, and all 
the people standing in a circle bent over and placed it before them 
on the ground. They sang about Temet, the sun. and putting 
him in the net, they raised their arms with the appropriate groans, 
cries, and gestures, and sent him up into the .sky as the sun : 

Temet kwon na num, temet kwon na num. temet kwon na num. 
han-han-n, han-n-n. 

He went to the north, but that was not right and they placed 
him in the net again. 

(Same recitative, words slightly varied.) 

He went south, but came back again. 

(Same recitative, groans, and gestures.) 

He went west, but went a little way and came down again. 

Temet tvvon put ya, temet kwon put ya. temet kwon put ya, 
han-n-n, wahha, wahha, wah-ha-a. 

They sent him east, and he went up in the skj- and away off. 

(Expressive gestures, arms raised towards the sky.) 

(Another recitative invocation). Thej- made it so that he 



=«) See Dieguefio Creation mrth. Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, Xl\, 181, 1901. 

2<i Hainit, heailband to hold feathers in place. — Ibid. — S. 

-*- Yunenkit, from yuni, to dive, sink. 

2<3 There is a song for this but it belongs to the Calacs, and Lucario 
cannot sing it. It descended to the Calacs from some dead ancestor. 

-■>* It is a place that can still be seen. The rocks and trees are all around 
in a circle, and stones are left there in groups of threes just as they used 
them for cooking their food, and heaps of ashes are found there. 



1908] DuBois. — HeUgion of the Luiseiio Indians. 145 

would not follow in a straiarlit line, bnt work southward or north- 
ward at different seasons of the year. 

Song, Temet karia. The sun should rise.'-" 

He rose. All was light, and the people could see each other. 
Tukmit said that some of the children should go north, others 
east, south, and west. So he divided them in this way. They had 
had only one language, but when they scattered he gave them dif- 
ferent languages. He also gave them their religion. He sent 
the Dieguefios and others south with their language, and to the 
west he sent those of Capistrano, and so on, with their language, 
and in the center he left us (the Mountain Luisefios), with one 
language from Temecula to La JoUa. 

Before the people, the tribes, were scattered north, south, 
east, and west, Moyla,-*" Ouiot. was there. Because he disliked 
the shape of Wahawut, the frog, she killed him. He only thought 
about her, but as she was a witch she could tell his thoughts; so 
Ouiot got sick and called his people from the north to come. He 
was very sick, and when they came they tried to find out what 
was the matter. They were witches and thought that they could 
cure him, but they could not tell what was the matter. Then the 
people from the east, south, and west came and did the same 
thing. 

Ouiot got worse, and was paralyzed so that he could not walk, 
but crawled around and grew worse and worse. The hawk, Ma- 
whala,"*' came to doctor Ouiot, and he was the only one who could 
tell what was the matter with him. He said that Wahawut was 
killing him by witchcraft. Then the people found out that Waha- 
wut was doing that. 

Ouiot knew now that he was going to die, and he mentioned 
all the "months" in a ^series, saying in each that perhaps he 
would die in that one. The last one. Soymamul, meant that he 
would die and take all with him (in death). 

Chehemal was a good man. and Ouiot had confidence in him, 
so he called him and told him that he would come back in three 
days. After he died, all his people were gathered there and they 



2*5 Temet, sun; kare'i, to rise; temet-up kare'ak, the sun is rising. — S. 

zis Moon. 

2*7 Mawhala, a large hawk that soars much. — S. 



146 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

did not know what to do, whether to burn or bury him. They 
decided to burn the bodj'. The kangaroo-rat lost no time but 
went to work, and kept himself busy making a carrj'^ing net in 
which to lift Ouiot. An old woman, now the glow-worm, had 
some fire hidden under her arm. They first of all dug a shallow 
hole and put wood in it. Coyote was always a mean sort of fel- 
low, and the people suspected him and made an excuse to send 
him away while they burned the body. So they called him and 
told him he was the quickest man and he must go north to get 
some fire. He did not want to leave. Se he started to where the 
First People lived in the north. But he did not go all the way, 
only ran a little way and came back, saying he could not get any 
fire there. So they sent him in turn to the people in the east, 
south, and west, but he came back each time without any fire. 
There was a big log lying there which a dozen men could not lift. 
When Coyote had gone off, Wiskun, now the chipmunk, went out 
and got the log, singing a groaning recitative, lifted it, and car- 
ried it over to where Ouiot was. As soon as they got it ready, 
the kangaroo-rat brought his net, and they put Ouiot in it, and 
he carried it over to the place of the burning. He could hardly 
walk but staggered under his load. Then they took half of the 
log, slightly hollowed out, mavakal, and laid Ouiot on it. He 
had no clothes, but upon his breast was laid the dressed and dec- 
orated skin of the crow (raven?). Over him they put the other 
slightly hollowed piece, avakal. They started the fire, and while 
it was burning thej' stood close together around it so that Coyote 
could not reach the body. The badger was a little man and he 
was standing there in the circle. The bodj' was burned all but 
the heart, and when Coyote got there he ran around the circle 
stretching himself and peering over to see what he could do. 
Then he ran back to get a start, took a running jump forward 
over their heads, got the heart, and ran off with it in his mouth. 
They clubbed him well, but he got it just the same. Then when 
everything was burned, they gathered the bones and held a 
council to decide what they should do. 

The eagle was a very wise man and he knew a great deal ; 
and he thought he would go north to try to get away from death, 
as he found there was to be death after Ouiot died. When he 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the LviseTw Indians. 147 

went north he found that death was there, and east, south, and 
west the same. When he came back he told the people that death 
was everywhere. It was very close. They had all to die. He 
sang this at Temecula.-*' 

Then they wanted to kill the deer, but he said. No, that was 
not right, for he was just the same as they were. They told him 
they would kill him with the sacred stones. He said, No, he had 
the same. Then they got a stone arrow-straightener and said 
they would kill him with that. He said. No, he had that too. 
They said they had the feathers for the head-dresses and would 
kill him with them. He said, No, he had some of them too. They 
showed him arrowheads and said they would kill him with them. 
He said, No, he had those also. They showed him a bow and said 
they would kill him with that. Deer said he also had that. They 
told him they had sinew and would kill him with that. He said, 
No, he had that too. They told him they would kill him with 
blood. Deer said, No, he had that. They told him they would 
kill him with the tracks of their footprints. He said, No, some 
of those were his too. They told him they would kill him with 
marrow. Deer said. No, he also had marrow. They told him 
they would kill him with their ears. He said they could not do 
that. He had ears too. They told him they would kill him with 
their eyes. He said. No, he had eyes too. They told him they 
would kill him with the skin of the deer's head and antlers worn 
on the head by the hunter to deceive the deer. He said, No, he 
had that too. They told him they would kill him with tobacco. 
He said, No. He had some of that too. They told him they 
would kill him with wood-ticks. He said, No, he had those also. 
They told him they would kill him with one of the big blue-flies. 
He said. No, he had that too. Then at last he gave up when they 
told him they would kill him with the feathers that wing the 
arrows. 

So they killed the deer, and all the different kinds of rabbits. 

Then the valley quail and mountain quail and road-runner 
and woodpecker mourned and cut their hair for mourning.-*^ 
They were the first to do this, and the Indians still mourn in this 



"s See song record 391 above. 

2<9 All birds with a plume or crest. 



148 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

way in some places, eutting their hair for the dead. Chehemel, 
kingbird, was the only one that knew that Ouiot was coming back, 
and when the day came he got on his housetop and said, "Ouiot 
is coming." Some of the people said, "How can that be? He 
is dead." Kingbird said: "Come. Look in the east. Karia 
Ouiot, Ouiot Jloyla, Eises Ouiot, Ouiot the moon." All came 
out and saw him in the west. Kingbird alone saw him in the 
east. All shouted out, and every time after that when they saw 
the new moon they would start a fire and have races. 

ORIGIN OF TUE XOTISH MOURNING CEREMONY."'"' 

The Sea-fog, Awawit, was the one who started the Xotish 
ceremonj'. He was one of those who arranged all the ceremonies 
after the death of Ouiot. He was the one who had to provide 
the food and to call all the people together. 

Sea-fog set up the kutumit pole with baskets at the top, and 
arranged for a contest of skill between his people of the West and 
those of the mountains. The Western people were sure that 
they could do better in everything than the people of the moun- 
tains."'^ 

So everyone tried to climb the pole to get the baskets, but no 
one could reach the top except the squirrel from the mountains, 
and he climbed the pole, cut the string, and the baskets fell down. 

When the mountain people went to this gathering, thej' took 
deer meat and much food, all thej' could carry ; but Jlechish from 
the ocean, a sea animal that crawls along, and has little hollows 
or cups in his shell, got a bag and got all the food in that and 
carried it off. So the West won in that contest and got all the 
mountain people's food. In the first game the squirrel beat. In 
the second the West beat. 

Then the Western people gathered fish and other things to 
eat. There was a bird there from the mountains with a veiy big 
mouth (the whip-poor-will?), and the mountain people said to 



■i!>o Told by Lucario Cuevisli. 

251 The place where the ceremony was held can still be seen. It is where 
the trees stand around in a circle, and ashes and stones used for cooking are 
there, it is on the mountain ridge from Pala going towards Temecula. 
Compare the description of the place near Temecula where the sun was 
raised, given by the same informant (p. 144, note 244). 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Luisciio Indians. 149 

him : "It is yonr turn now to eat. ' ' He said : ' ' That is uothing 
for me to do." So he opened his mouth and they poured every- 
thing into it. and he ate it all up. So the mountain people beat. 

Then they arranged a game between the fish and the owl. 
They were to look straight at each other and whoever closed his 
eyes first was to lose. The owl and the fish sat and looked at 
each other, and finally the owl had to close his eyes, so he lost, 
and the Western people won on that. 

They were getting angry over all this contest and it seemed 
that there would be a fight. When levalwLsh. the crow's skin,^^^ 
is hung on the pole, there is to be fighting. 

Then Sea-fog made a house and told the mountain people to 
try to destroy it. So they got the summer-cloud, Thunder-cloud, 
a very powerful man, to come and see if he could blow or break 
it down. He came, he roared and blew, but could do nothing to 
break the house down. So the West won. Then Thunder-cloud 
invited Sea-fog to come up to his house and see if he could destroy 
it. So Sea-fog came. A strong wind broke the trees and Imocked 
down all the houses. So the West won again. Then thej' tried 
thjir skill in a long race. They went past Pala up through the 
mountains as far as La JoUa."^' Some of those that raced on the 
side of the mountain people were the hawk, frog, eagle, raven, 
and chicken-hawk; and for the West, Emamul (little birds on 
the seashore, veiy fast runnei-s),-^* the butterfly, grasshopper, 
and others. As they came by Pala to the foot of the mountain, 
at Rincon, Wasimul,^'^^ a kind of hawk, gave out in the race, and 
there he is now as a rock beside the road, right below the .store. 
(See Ancestral Songs.) At the same time Chehuka,-^" a person, 
coming along in the race, gave out, and his footprint can still be 
seen in the rock. When many of the racers had given out and 
died, or stayed behind, the eagle and the raven and the chicken- 
hawk, Mountain people, were ahead: and the grasshopper and 



252 Levalvush, wide; a rare word. 

-53 Lucario, probably on account of his blindness, is inclined to give a 
very limited account of distance. All the others say that this race was to 
be made out to the desert and back again. 

254 Emamal, a small bird. — S. 

255 Wasimal, a hawk that nests on the ground. — S. 

-56 Chahuka, a person that lived in the distant past. — S. 



150 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

the butterfly, Western people, were close behind, so the Mountain 
people won in this race. 

The last race was between the deer, Sukut, and the antelope, 
Tenia. This race was from Temecula to San Bernardino moun- 
tain, and the antelope beat in this, for it was all on a level, where 
the antelope can go faste.st. So they arranged to have another 
race between them, and this time it was over a mountain route, 
and here the deer won the race. 

Summer-cloud (Thunder-cloud) was glad because the deer 
beat, and the mountain people had won in mo.st of the contests. "^^ 
All these contests were made in the first Notish ceremony and 
ended it. 

A CHUNGICHNISH STORY.^'' 

Among the people living near El Toro, there was a boy who 
was always hunting rabbits, quail, and the like with bow and 
arrows. One day, near Santa Ana, he saw a rabbit which he 
tried to catch, but it ran into a hole in the ground. He got a 
stick and poked in the hole. He felt the rabbit, so he kept on 
digging, and went farther and farther down, every little while 
finding something, which, he would say, "I will take to my 
mother," "to my sister," and so on. 

So he went on, and finally came to a place where those Chung- 
ichnish were living. They all said, "Witte," — "Welcome" — to 
him, and told him to sit down. Then they built a big fire, a very 
large fire. The boy was very sad. He did not know what to do. 
There he was down in the ground among those people. He was 
afraid. 

These people had power and could do anything. They would 
stand up, leap, jump, and dance moving about, jump into the fire 
and stand in the middle of it, the flames going up above their 
heads. All took turns in doing this; then they said to the boy: 
" It is your turn now. ' ' He was frightened, but he sang a song, 
a sort of invocation,-^" and then jumped into the fire. He felt 



=!■■ It is evident that certain trials of skill have been forgotten by the 
narrator, as in his list the mountain people are not ahead. 
2'8 Told by Salvador Cuevas. 
25» See song record 405 given above. 



190S] DuBois. — Beligion of the Luiscno Indians. 151 

no heat, and after standing there awhile he came out unharmed. 
They all shouted and said, "Now you are a good Chungich- 

nish." 

This is the reason people dance in that way, jumping and 
moving about. 

NAHACHISH.-"" 

One of the Temeeula people was called Xahachish. He was 
a chief. He used to have in his house the limb of a tree cut into 
a hook and fastened up to hang food on. Some people broke the 
hook down. He became so poor that he had nothing to eat, and 
did not know what to do. He sang a song.'"^^ He sang that he 
was going to leave that part of the country, but he did not know 
where to go. 

He went to Pieha Awanga, Piehanga,-"- between Temeeula 
and "Warner's Ranch, and named that place. There were a lot 
of people there having a fie.sta, and there was plenty of food. 
They passed everjiihing to him, and there was a sort of mush of 
a light gray color. So he said, "My stomach is picha. " So they 
called the place by that name. 

Then he went over the mountain at George Cook's to Palomar 
mountain. There was no one there. The houses were empty. 
He stood looking and peering about, and could see no one. So he 
called the place Chikuli.-*^^ 

Then he went to a place, Poyarak,"''* where some of his family 
lived. They gave him so much to eat that he got sick and called 
the place Sukishva,-"'* nettle. "My stomach is nettle," burns, he 
said. He was so poor that he did nothing but go from place to 
place to get something to eat. 

There is a place below here where he washed his hands, and 
called it Kaivawahuna.-"" He did this on a flat i-oek where one 



200 See above under "Ceremonial Songs," record number 409. 
"61 See song record 409. 

262 Piehaang, now Pichanga ; Awa ', locative Awanga, now Aguanga or 
Aguango. — S. Awa, present series, IV, 147. 

263 Chakuli.— S. 
26-1 Poyarak. — S. 

265 Shakishva, a place on Palomar mountain; shakishla, stinging nettle. 
— S. 

266 Kayawahana. — S. 



152 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

can still see his footprints, and see where he knelt on the soft 
rock. There are footprints of deer there too. 

He came to La Jolla and called it Huyama ;-"" and the place 
next to that he called Namila.-"* He went in a ravine-'"* and 
called it Sovoyama,^" because it felt chilly. 

He made a sort of whistling noise and called the next place 
Puma."' 

He saw people feasting when his stomach was empty, and 
called that place Yapiehi,^'" where the government Indian school- 
house at Yapichi now is. 

When he came to where Mendelhall lives now. the people were 
eating. He had a good meal there and called the place Tumka.""' 

In the caiion he drank water and called it Pala, water, and 
Fame, little water.='* 

He went on and came to Rincon. It was muddy there and he 
called it Yohama.^" 

He came to Bear Valley, where he fainted from hunger. lie 
called it Nakwama.^'" 

He came to the water. He had something with him in a 
basket, and this he threw out, and it still grows there in the water, 
a sort of greens, called ]\Iawut. 

Then he went below Pala to a place where they ground pinole 
for him so fine that he could not handle it, and was disappointed. 
They mixed it with poison to kill him. It made him sick, and 
he traveled toward home. lie died on the way, and turned into 
a rock which still stands near Temeeula, two or three miles south. 

They say that a priest once went out and baptized this rock 
because the people told him it was a man. 



2<" Huvamai, a place, not La Jolla. — S. 

208 Namila, a place near La Jolla. — S. 

209 A ravine between the Mission house and Leandro 's place. 
2'» Sovoyainai, where the La Jolla schoolhouse now stands. — S. 
2" Puniai, a hill on Potrero rancho. — S. 

='2 Yapichi.— S. 

273 Tomka, valley on Potrero ranch. — S. 

274 Pala, water; Pamai, in San Luis Eey cafion above Eincon. — S. 

275 Yuhwamai, muddy place, near Rincon ; yuhwala, mud. — S. 
270 Possibly Makwimai, a place near Bincon. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Luiseiio hidians. 



THE SPIRIT WIFE. 

Some years ago the people from the Potrero district used to 
go up to an old village site on Palomar mountain, Pahamuk,^'' 
near where Bailey's place is now, at the season for gathering 
acorns ; and while they still lived there, a young man abused his 
wife. He scolded and beat her all the time, and she was always 
sad. She got sick and did not want to live. She would rather 
die. 

She had a little baby boy just beginning to crawl. Soon the 
woman died, and the man was left alone with his baby. He had 
to carry the baby about with him all the time, and the baby 
cried. 

The man went up the mountain to gather acorns, and left the 
baby lying under a tree. The baby cried and cried, until at last 
the spirit of the mother came and took the baby in her arms. 

The man came down the mountain and found the woman there. 
She spoke to him and said that he had been so cruel to her that 
she had had to leave him ; but that now he must never be unkind 
to her again. She had come back to him because he and the baby 
were suffering without her. She could stay with him a.s long as 
he was kind to her, but no longer. 

So he promised never to treat her harshly again. 

She used to make the wiwish, acorn mush f'' but it was never 
good. It was always watery. The man was sure he would never 
abuse his wife again. But when she made the mush just as she 
used to, and it was thin, he acted as before and lifted his hand to 
beat her. 

"You promised not to be angry," she said, "but now you are 
doing the same as formerly. I see that you cannot be trusted to 
be good. So now I shall have to leave you. ' ' With this she turned 
into a dove and flew away. 

The man fell on his back ; and he and his baby stayed alone. 



154 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 



THE DANCE OF THE SPIKITS. 

There were two large villages in old times, Kaiuak, where Po- 
trero is now,"* and Ahoya near where Sparknian's store is at 
Rincon,"'" where one leaves the sycamore trees. 

AVhen it was time to gather the acorns, all the people of Ka- 
niak left their houses empty and went up on Palomar IMountain. 

An old man named Pautovak came up from Ahoya, and 
stopped at Kamak, thinking he would stay all night and go on in 
the morning. He took one of the enormous storage baskets, mush- 
kwanLshj^'" that was empty, inverted it over himself for shelter, 
and went to sleep. 

Early during the night he heard people call out the summons 
to a dance. He lay and listened. 

There were children among the people, little boys, and they 
came near the granarj- basket, and there was a torn place in it 
where the toes of the old man were sticking out. The boys said 
"the devil" (a spirit) was there, and ran away. 

The old man could recognize the voices of men and women who 
had died long ago. He could hear the spirits talk and hear them 
laugh. One was Exwanyawish,-^' the woman that was turned 
into a rock, and Piyevla,"^^ the man that scooped the rock with his 
fingers.^*^ Piyevla sang that night all the songs that had been 
his when alive. 

The old man could hear the women's songs as they danced. 
He lay awake all night and listened ; till at last, just before dawn, 
he could not wait any longer, but determined to see them for 
himself; so suddenly throwing off the basket, he said, "Hai, are 
you there?" and immediately all the spirits turned into a flock 
of birds ami flew away; and the turtle-shell rattle they had used 
all night for the dancing he found where they had left it. but 
now it was nothing but a piece of soaproot. 



s'sKama', near Potrcro; Kuka, a village near where Potrero now is. — S. 
='» Ahuya, old village site above Eincon on road toward Potrero. — S. 

280 Ibid.— 8. 

281 Exvongawish (x German ch), of Exva. — S. 

282 Peycvla, large basket; a hole in a rock at Potrero. — S. 

283 See below, the account of ancestral landmarks. 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the Luiseno Indians. 



THE SPRING BEHIND THE CEMETERY. 

A man was going out to get some yucca, and went to the 
spring. He had a stick in his hand, and he dropped it into the 
water, and it sank so deep he could not get it. He was a witch, 
so he went down under the water to look for the stick. 

And he came out into a place where a man and woman lived 
who sat there making baskets. 

"Who are you, cousin, and where do you come from? What 
are you doing here?" they asked. 

"I live up there, and I came down to look for the stick which 
I lost." 

He sta.yed there three daj^s. He was very thirsty, so the 
woman gave him a little shell full of water. He drank and 
drank, and still the shell was full of water. He was hungry and 
they gave him honey to eat. 

Then he began to wish for his home, and the man who lived 
there saw that he wanted to leave them ; so he said he might go 
if he would promise never to tell where he had been. If he told 
this secret the rattlesnake would immediately bite him and he 
would die. So the man promised not to tell, and they painted 
him all over and pushed him out, and he found himself in his own 
home. 

His wife and his brother asked where he had been, but he 
would not tell them. His wife was determined to find out, and 
gave him no peace day or night until at last he consented to tell 
her. 

"I shall be killed for telling this," he said, so he called all the 
people together and told them he must die; and he wanted them 
to burn his body in a certain open level place where there was no 
water; but after his ashes were buried there, water would come 
up and there would be a nice spring. 

So he went out of his house, and a rattlesnake was there which 
bit him, and he died. 

The people got wood for the funeral pile, and burned his body 
and buried his ashes. Thei-e was no water in this place, but two 
or three daj's after there was a spring of water there. One can 
see it now behind the cemetery, and fresh coals, pieces of charcoal, 
are always rising where the water bubbles up. 



156 Univers^ity of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 



THE WALKING TA.M\X'SH. 

The Taiuj'ush, sacred stone bowls, were never made. They 
were among the first people, born of the Earth-mother. If the 
chief in whose charge they are, does not take good care of them 
they go away. 

They have been seen going along the road, and one can follow 
their track in the dust. It is like a rattlesnake track, but broad- 
er. 

At Pichanga one lately came there. A raven was seen flying 
along above the road, and every now and then he .swooped down 
as if following some object. A man went to see what wjis there, 
and found the TamjTish. It had been coming along the road to 
Pichanga. He took it to his home and they had a big ceremony 
over it. The man is dead now. 

HOW COYOTE KILLED THE FROG. 

Coyote was going along. He was a man then, and had a bow 
and arrows. He came to Wahawut, the frog, who was making a 
large granary basket. 

He went around her with his bow and arrows; and she 
thought, ' ' My nephew, I believe you are thinking of killing me. ' ' 
She knew what he was thinking. 

Coyote said, "No, I am not." 

Then she said, "If you shoot me with your arrow, wherever 
you hit me water will run out and drown you." 

"No, I don't believe it," said Coyote. 

So he made ready his arrow and shot her, and ran away as 
fast as he could. 

As soon as the arrow struck her, the water began to run out. 

He came to a tree-'* and climbed into it ; and the water reached 
it, and made a big lake around it. It rose and rose, and Coyote 
climbed up higher into the tree. He felt that he was near his 
death and began singing about his brother, his relatives, and 
friends.-*^ 



=81 Chehenahut, a tall green tree. 
=85 Song record 1091, above. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiscito Indians. 157 

The birds came close about the tree, and told him that if he 
jumped down they would catch him on their bacljs and carry him 
safe to land. He believed them, jumped from the tree, fell into 
the water, and was drowned. 



THE FLOOD.-"' 

There is a wonderful little knoll, near Bonsall, the Spanish 
name of it Mora, the Indian name Katuta ;^^' and when there was 
a flood that killed all the people, some stayed on this hill and were 
not drowned. All the high mountains were covered, but this 
little hill remained above the water. One can see heaps of sea- 
shells and seaweed upon it, and ashes where those people cooked 
their food, and stones set together, left as they used them for 
cooking; and the shells were those of shell-fish they caught to 
eat.-*' 

They stayed there till the water went down. From the top 
of this hill one can see that the high mountains are lower than it 
is. This hill was one of the First People.-^" 



286 Told by Lucario Cuevish. 

=87 Or Katuktu ; see song records 395 and 398 above. — Katukto. — S. 

2SS The hills near Del Mar and other places along the coast have many 
such heaps of sea-shells, of the species stiO found on the beaches, piled in 
quantities. 

289 See song record 398, above. 



158 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 



TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE. 

ANCESTRAL LANDMARKS AXD DESCENT OP SONGS. 

After the water dried, the people went on to Kalaupa,-"" and 
killed a bear there, and held a council whether they should go any 
further. They decided to go on, and went to Elsinore where the 
lake is. Prom there they scattered, north, south, east, and west, 
in parties as they are now. The people of La Jolla stayed in one 
place; those of Rineon in another, and so on. When they scat- 
tered in this way they composed the songs about their travels and 
the different places where they stopped. These are the songs of 
Munival. 

When the people scattered from Eln-o Temeko, Temecula, 
they were very powerful. When thej' got to a place they would 
sing a song to make water come there, and would call that place 
theirs; or they would scoop out a hollow in a rock with their 
hands to have that for their mark as a claim upon the land. The 
different parties of people had their own marks. For instance, 
Albanas's ancestors had theirs, and Lucario's people had theirs, 
and their own songs of Munival to tell how they traveled from 
Temecula, of the spots where they stopped and about the differ- 
ent places they claimed. 

Wasimul, one of the Temecula people, who is now a small flat 
rock at Rineon in the field below the store, was one of Pio Am- 
ago's ancestors, and he has a song about it. It mentions Teme- 
cula and mentions Wasimul. Lucario cannot sing this song be- 
cause it does not belong to his family. 

Piyevla,'"^ the man who scooped out a rock on the hill near 
Albanas's house at La Jolla, was one of Lucario's ancestors; and 
the turtle rock in the same locality was brought from Temecula 
by one of Lucario 's ancestors and left there. The oak tree grow- 
ing on this rocky knoll was called long ago Pecheya, sacred 
feather headdress. (PI. 4, fig. 1.) The place itself is called 



200 Kalaupa, mountain near Santa Margarita. — S. 

="1 See the story of the Dance of the Spirits, ante. — Peyevla, a hollow 
rock near Potrero. — S. 



190S] DvBois. — Beligion of the Luiseho Indians. 159 

Popikvo. The sliding place on a large rock in Tnijillo's field 
adjoining Popikvo, was made smooth by Lueario's ancestors 
sliding on it. 

One of the most striking rocks in this locality of ancient monu- 
ments is the painted rock, Exwanyawish^"- which was one of the 
Temecula people, a woman, who turned into this form. Indians 
suffering bodily pain rub against the rock to obtain relief. It is 
not known when the painting on the hollowed side was done, nor 
when the sacred stones, wiala, were poised on top. The oldest 
man remembers that they were always there, though the touch of 
a hand might overturn them. PI. 4, fig. 2.) 

In those days they used to sing songs to kill each other by 
witchcraft, and Lucario knows these songs. He has one of them 
which mentions the turtle rock, and tells how it was left there.-"' 
The large flat rock is divided by cracks which resemble the marks 
on the turtle 's back. 

Lucario is the last of his line, partj-, or elan, and everything 
sacred will be lost when he is gone, as the succession in these 
things ends with him. He Ls dispossessed from his ancient home 
place, which was allotted to another. 

Each man knows the migration route of his ancestors, and 
claims certain localities as having been theirs. They did not 
travel great distances, according to ti'adition. Salvador says that 
when the people scattered from Temecula all the tribes had names, 
but many are dead and few now living. He does not know the 
name of his own tribe. They are called by themselves Western 
people.-'''' When they scattered, the people traveled in parties of 
two or three families, and they would claim the land where they 
stopped, though they might have left it and gone further and 
others might have occupied it later. This led to a great deal of 
fighting. The La Jolla people would fight the Potrero people. 
A man could not go from Potrero to San Jacinto without danger 
of being killed by some enemy. 

The family songs of Munival mention the marks made by the 
earliest Temecula people when they took possession of certain 



29- ExTongawish (x German ch), of Ex\-a, a place near Temecula; Ex- 
vayam, people of Exva. — S. 

293 See song record 396, above. 

29* The Diegueno also give themselves this name. 



160 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

localities. Every family or "party" had its own songs, and no 
man is allowed to sing a song belonging to another family connec- 
tion. It would be an unpardonable offense against custom. Lu- 
cario was quite indignant when it was suggested that his song of 
the eagle dance might have been heard at ]\Iesa Grande. One of 
the songs in his version of the creation mji^h belongs to the Calacs, 
so that he could not sing it but only refer to it. 

The subject matter of the .song series in all the lines of descent 
or "parti&s" is the same. All the singers have songs mentioning 
the same places and subjects: but Juan de Dios's song of Ouiot, 
for instance, Mould be entirely different from Lucario's in tune 
and arrangement. 

This may also account for the variation in the mj-th versions, 
as the songs are part of the storj', and the rigid separation of 
songs among family groups must have resulted in certain differ- 
ences in the transmission of traditions. 

Inheritance in these unsubstantial things is strictly observed 
until the family line is extinct, lly Indian driver once pointed 
out a distant cliff of gray rocks, tall and forbidding, far from a 
human habitation, and informed me that an eagle had its nest 
on that cliff, and that this eagle belonged to Maria Subish. 

This means that she is the last of a line in which the posses- 
sion of this eagle eyrie was hereditary. The old eagle never dies, 
it is thought, hence may descend as the songs do. The young 
ones from this locality may have been caught for the performance 
of the eagle eeremonv in this faniilv. 



CLANS OR TRADITION.VL GROUPS. 

At the present day no trace of tribal consciousness exists ; but 
a division can still be traced into what maj' be called clans; 
though the little information gained is so vague in character that 
no definite conclusion can be based upon it. 

The interpreter thus tries to explain the division into these 
parties or clans. Jose's uncle has one name, and Jose's father 
has another; but the latter and others belong to the uncle's 
"party." They do not have to be related, but anyone can join 
the party who wants to. It is like church membership, he says. 



1908] DuBois. — ScUgion of the Luiseno Indians. 161 

or like Masons and Oddfellows. Some chiefs did not have many 
ceremonial objects, and did not perform any ceremonies; hut to 
Jose's unele descended the hereditary performance of Mani, the 
toloache ceremony. In earliest times the family name was Nax- 
yum. Now they are called Calae. When they scattered from 
Temeeula, the Naxyum family brought their tamjTish, toloache 
bowls, with them, and the other families did not bring any, or 
not many ; and they brought the fire songs to put out the fire in 
the toloache ceremony ; and they brought an eagle with them ; and 
as they came along thej' put him in one of the canons, and he is 
still there. They used to catch the young ones in this place for 
the ceremony. The Naxyum were a big family of brothers. They 
were all related. After they had found there was to be death, 
at the death of Ouiot, the Naxyum took the tamyush, while others 
did not take anything. They would sing the songs of Munival to 
tell how they traveled from Temeeula to Eincon, where they now 
live as the Calacs. 

The people from Temeeula called themselves Exvayum.""^ 
Temeeula was ruined after Ouiot died, so they scattered in 
groups. The Dieguenos went off with a separate language when 
they left Temeeula. 

The groups were originally related, but they kept changing 
names, so that they have not the same nam&s now, but have the 
same ancestors. 

The songs show who are related. Only those of the same 
group can sing the same songs. Jose's father's traveling songs 
are different from Lucario's. The songs descended from father 
to son and the old people were eager to teach the songs to those 
in the same family, but not to outsiders. But if an old man is 
the last of his line, like Lucario. it is then permissible for him to 
leave his songs to another in a different "party." 

When Albafias was a boy, his father was killed, and his moth- 
er died soon after. He was brought up by a circle of old people, 
each of whom in turn instructed him in the family songs. 

Some of the chiefs had very few ceremonies, did not know 
much. Only the most important ones could lead the ceremonies. 

-'J^ Exrayam (s German ch), people of Exra, a place near Temeeula. — S. 



162 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 



STAR LORE .VXD C.VLENDAR. 

The stars were those of the First People who went up into the 
sky in the attempt to escape from death when it became known 
that the death of Ouiot had brought death to all upon earth. 

In the old times much more was known about the stars than at 
present. Songs remain containing the names of stars which can- 
not now be identified. It is possible that the motions of the plan- 
ets were recognized, but today Venus seems to be the only one 
distinguished by a special name. Venus is Aylueha.^'" that which 
i.s left over from evening till morning, food or anything of the 
kind. 

Only the most important stans have names. They were the 
chiefs among the First People, and they took their parties of ad- 
herents or relatives with them, which are now the stars grouped 
about the chief star, but without individual names. 

The associated stars form much larger groups than those 
which we have adopted from antiquity; and when the Luisefio 
system is understood, there is something more impressive in it 
than in the haphazard arrangement of the Greeks and Romans. 
The oldest and most important star-chiefs, those most often men- 
tioned, are Niikiilish, Antaras, and Yungavish (buzzard), Altair. 
The right hand of Antares, Niikiilish po-ma, Niikiilish his-hand. 
is Arcturus. Rising always in advance of Antares. it heralds his 
coming. All the other stars grouped around and between are the 
people of Antares, a large following. 

In the same way Yungavish po-ma, the right hand of Altair, 
is Vega. The feather headdress of Altair, Peeheya Yungavish. =°' 
is a star close to and immediately above it. 

The Lui.senos regard the IMilky Way as the spirit, the home 
of our spirits, to which they are sent when leaving the earth. The 
long series of songs of Kwinamish define their beliefs concerning 
the spirit. The.se songs are extremely difficult of interpretation 
and explanation, for they include words unused in ordinary life, 
and ideas that would have been puzzling in the old days to any 
but the initiated. The instruction concerning the things of the 



208 Eluchax (x German ch). — S. 

=»' Yungavsh po-cheya, buzzard his-hcaJilress. — S. 



1908] DuBois. — Heligioji of the Luiseho Indians. 163 

spirit given to the candidate in the toloaehe ceremony, as ex- 
plained by the symbol Wanawut, has already been referred to. 
The exact character of this can never be discovered ; nor in just 
what manner it sjnnbolizes these ideas. 

One of the song.s of Kwinamish, already given, begins : Toma- 
mik Tula Wanawut poponakala ponj'arakala auma, to the north 
the spirit in carefully woven strings remains tied. The striking 
peculiarity in the Luiseno use of sacred terms, the doubling of 
the word, has been referred to. Wanal Wanawut has been ex- 
plained. Tula Wanawut has almost exactly the same signifi- 
cance. Tula means spirit, and literally head or hair. It is pos- 
sible that in ancient times the object Wanawut was made of hair, 
as were the bracelets and anklets used in the girls ' ceremony. In 
the creation mji:h one of the first states of existence, out of which 
Earth and Sky came by successive transitions, was called Whaikut 
Piwkut, explained as something silvery gray, like the glimmering 
of dawn or the gray hair of old age. In one of the earlier notes 
made, the explanation identifies Whaikut Piwkut with the Milky 
Waj'. It is possible that Whaikut Piwkut was the pre-existing 
form of the Millry Way, which in that case would have preemi- 
nence over Earth and Skj'. Its silvery glimmer is suggested by 
the term ; but all this is involved in uncertainty. 

The other chiefs of the first people now seen as stars of the 
first magnitude are Waonesh,^'' Spica ; Nawiwit Chawachwish,-^' 
Fomalhaut; and Tukmishwut,^"" the North star. Hulaish^"^ is 
Orion, and Chehaiyam'"^ the Pleiades. These two are always 
named together. 

Tukmishwut, the North star,^"' remains motionless, and all his 
people, the members of his "party," move in a circle about him. 
This is the reason the dancing and marching are in a circle around 
the sacred enclosure, the fire, and so on. His hand and heart are 
both to be seen in the sky. The outlines of these figures, traced 



298 Waunish, a star. — S. 

299 Ngoiwiit chawoehmush, a star. — S. 

300 Tiiknii iswutum pomshun, or tukmi iswut, the north star. — S. 

301 Hula 'chum, the three stars of Orion. — S. 

302 Chehaiyam, Pleiades. — S. 

303 His finger was bitten off by the rattlesnake. Journ. Amer. Folk- 
Lore, XIX, 54, 1906. 



164 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

in tiny sixth-magnitude stars, are only to be seen in an atmos- 
phere entirely free from moisture as well as from clouds. Three 
fingers are outlined, the blunt one having been bitten off ; and the 
heart is placed among them, its point reaching to the horizon be- 
neath. Albafias's grandfather taught him the outlines of this 
constellation of the North star in the evenings when the little 
boy sat by the hearth fire, tracing the figure in the sparks of little 
live coals upon the earth floor of the hut (fig. 3). 




Fig. 3. — Heart and three finf;er.s of north star. 

At the time when the stars went up in the slo.' to escape death, 
the Pleiades, Chehaiyam, were seven young women, sisters; and 
when they went up a rope was let down for them to climb on. 

Coyote came along, and as there was no man with them he said, 
' ' I will go with you, girls. ' ' They did not answer him, but he took 
hold of the rope and kept on going up after them. But when 
they were safely up, they cut the rope and Coyote fell backwards. 
There is always a star following them, Aldebaran, and this is 
Coj'ote. 

Orion went up at the same time. 

The eclipse of the moon is the physical manifestation of Qui- 
et's sickness when he counted the months expecting to die. "When 
the eclipse clears off, I\Ioyla, Ouiot, gets well again. 

At the time of the eclipse they sing the songs of Pikmakvul. 

The moon was sent up into the sky to watch the people and 
regulate everything, and all goes according to the moon. Es- 
pecially is this so in regard to women who have their menses, 
but men are also affected by it, and become .strong or weak as the 
moon waxes and wanes. 



1908] DuBois. — Religion of Ike Luiseilo IncHan-s. 165 

Mr. P. S. Sparkman in liis unpublished dictionary of the 
Luiseno language says : 

"The Luiseno year was divided into eight periods, each of which was 
again divided into two parts. Periods of time were not represented by these 
divisions, which merely indicated when certain fruits and seeds ripened, 
grass began to grow, trees came into leaf in the valley, or on the mountain, 
etc. 

' ' The following are the divisions of the year : 

Tasmoi-mal alu 'mal Tasmoyil mokat 

Tauna-mal alu 'mal Tawut mokat 

Tausun-mal alu 'mal Tausanal mokat 

Tovuk-mal alu 'mal Tovakal mokat 

Nova 'no-mal alu 'mal Novanut mokat 

Pahoi-mal alu 'mal Pahoyil mokat 

Nemoi-mal alu 'mal Nemoyil mokat 

Somoi-mal alu 'mal Somoyil mokat 

' ' It will be seen that the first word of the name given to the first part 
of each period has the diminutive sufiLx -mal affixed to it, while the second 
word of the name, alu 'mal, means thin or lean. Therefore this means some- 
thing like the small lean part of the period. Mokat, the second word of the 
name given to the second part of each period, means large, therefore the 
second parts are spoken of as the large parts. But it is not necessary to use 
the words alu 'mal and mokat; the other words may be used alone. 

' ' It has been impossible to ascertain exactly what periods of the year 
are represented by these divisions ; informants reply differently. ' ' 

The names of these ' ' months ' ' are all taken from the physical 
features of different seasons. Tausunmal, August, means every- 
thing is brown and sear. Tovukmal refers to the little streams 
of water washing the fallen leaves. Tasmoimal means that the 
rain has come and grass is sprouting. In Nemoimal the deer 
grow fat. The "months" are marked by the rising of certain 
magnitude stars counted in the early morning.^"* 



304 The Diegueiio year was divided into six months and the morning ris- 
ing of five chief stars was noted. The names of the months are: Hutlnama- 
shap, Hutltai, Hutlpswi, Hutlkwurx, Hutlmatanai, Hutlanaxa. 

The Diegueuo constellations are altogether different from the Luiseiio, 
and based upon totally different ideas. It has not been possible to secure 
an accurate account of them ; but it seems that there is no one consistent 
idea to account for them as with the Luiseiios, whose superior intellectuality 
is shown in their power of generalization ; but it is probable that with the 
Diegueiios as with us, they represent each a different myth concept. 

Orion is called Mu in Manzanita Diegueiio, Emu at Mesa Grande, the 
word meaning mountain sheep. This apt name is given from the perfectly 
defined horns of the mountain sheep which can be traced on one side of the 
constellation as we see it, in tiny stars. 

It is said that Scorpio is with the Diegueiios a boy with a bow and arrow. 

The Diegueno conception of the Milky Way was probably adopted by 
them from the Luiseiios along with the rest of the Chungichnish religion. 



Utiiversity of Ca}ifornia Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 



THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 

ilusic was invented in the earliest times, and Lion, Frog, 
Eagle, Kaven, Deer, and others were the first musicians. 

The instrument they used to play on was a flute made of a 
hollow elder stem or piece of cane, having four holes. It is ex- 
tremely difficult to play upon this primitive instrument, and only 
one old Indian at present knows the tunes and the art of playing 
them. 

The First People had a contest to see who could play the best 
tune, the condition being that the whole of each piece invented 
by them should be played upon the flute in one breath. So, hav- 
ing composed each a tune, they met at the appointed place to play 
in turn. 

Coyote was artful enough to compose his tune with many 
pauses in the measure ; and at each pause he would secretly draw 
his breath. So he won in every contest, till it came to be the turn 
of the Lizard, and he had carefnly watched all the time to see 
how Coyote did it. So when they had a contest. Lizard did just 
the same, pausing and secretly drawing his breath, as Coyote did ; 
till at last Coyote forgot to do this and stopped, and Lizard beat 
him in the contest. 



1908] DuBois. — Beligion of the Luiseno Indians. 



APPENDIX I. 
GAMES, ARTS, AND INDUSTRIES OF THE DIEGUE550S AND 

luiseSos.* 

By Constance Goddard DnBois. 

The Diegiienos had many gambling games which were simply 
contests of skill. One was played by throwing a stick at a roll- 
ing hoop. Men and women had different but somewhat similar 
games, played b.y throwing sticks marked with certain figures, 
and counting so many for the throw, which are quite complicated 
and not easily understood unless illustrated. The men's game 
called "quince" is named from the Spanish, but is probably 
much older than that would suggest. 

The most important game is "peon," which has almost the 
value of a religious ceremonial. It is played at midnight on the 
occasion of an Indian fiesta. A shaman should lead each side, 
and all his power must be exerted for the success of his village, 
the challengers being visitors from a distance. 

Sides are chosen and money in considerable quantity is staked 
on the result. Wooden counters are used as in all the games to 
mark the score. White and black "sticks" made of bone fas- 
tened by a string are tied securely to the lingers of the players, 
so there can be no cheating, but all depends on skill or quickness 
of observation. 

The players of one side, kneeling in a row upon the ground, 
are covered to the waist with a blanket which hides all motion 
as they arrange the pieces of bone upon the finger. While doing 
this, the better to confuse the observation of the opponents, they 
sway from side to side emitting the most unearthly series of 
repeated sounds in measured time to the accompaniment of the 
women's songs. 



* The following notes on the culture of the Luiseno and Dieguefio were 
incidentally obtained by Jliss DuBois during her stay among them while she 
was engaged in the study of their religion. — Ed. 



168 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

When they are ready the blanket is dropped, and the other 
side must guess the location of the small disk of bone concealed 
in the hand of the player, whose name is called while the hands 
are clapped and pointed with lightning rapidity first to one and 
then to another in the row. The points are counted and awards 
made by the leader or "umpire" in the game. 

Gambling with the Indians satisfied that instinct for recre- 
ation and excitement which in civilized man finds expression in 
the countless amusements good and bad which he demises for 
his leisure hours. Peon is thrilling even to a bystander ; but all 
is managed with the precision and self-restraint which is inher- 
ited from primitive days, when every act was in some sense a 
religious ceremonial. 

As is the case in all primitive tribes, basketrj' and pottery 
rank first in importance among the industrial arts of the Die- 
gueiios and Luisefios. 

The former used pottery not only for domestic purposes, but 
in the form of burial vessels, ollas, for the preservation of the 
ashes of the dead. After the body was burned, the ashes and 
bones were collected and deposited in the potterj"^ receptacle or 
olla, and carefully buried in some secret place. The whereabouts 
of some of the burial ollas are still known to the initiated. Others 
have been discovered by chance by tourists and collectors. With 
the Indians, to betray the secret would be to profane the most 
sacred things of their religion. Fortunatelj' two fine specimens 
of these rare objects have lately been secured."*'' Thej' were 
found buried among fallen granite rocks in a distant canon of 
the mountains near a deserted Indian village. They contained 
bits of burned bones, charcoal, arrow-heads, etc. 

Next in importance were the large storage pots or ollas for 
the seed supply of the family. The seeds, carefully harvested, 
were depasited in these receptacles, which were hidden among 
heaps of rocks in caiions or on almost inaccessible mountain sides, 
discouraging discovery, but allowing the members of the house- 
hold to resort to this granary in time of need. 

One fine specimen collected for the American Museum of 
Natural History was made by the grandfather of the man of 



305 See Amer. Anthr. IX, pi. XXIX, 1907. 



1908] DuBois. — Seligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 169 

sixty-five who sold it ; and he remembers going as a little boy at 
night with his grandfather to this secret storehouse. This vessel 
was photographed, and also the inaccessible roclcy hillside, near 
the top of which it had been hidden among the rocks. 

In the Ballena district, eight miles or so from Mesa Grande, 
there is an exceedingly interesting painted rock which marks the 
site of a prehistoric village. The flat rocks near by show the 
round holes left by the departed grinders of seeds, grains, and 
acorns. But the most remarkable feature of the place consists 
in the circles of stones grouped on top of the hillock as if huddled 
together for protection against the foe. 

Upon first examination it seemed that these circles had been 
the foundations of Indian houses, though of what material the 
superstructure had been made it was impossible to conjecture. 
They were formed of loose bouldei's rolled into place, and showed 
no trace of other building material. They were singularly small 
in circumference if houses were to be erected upon them. 

Later the probable explanation of these circles was found in 
Venegas. Venegas writes: "The people near Cape San Lucas 
make huts of the branches of trees. In other parts of the coun- 
try, their houses are only a little space inclosed with stones laid 
one upon another, half a yard high, one yard .square, and with- 
out any covering but the heavens; dwellings indeed so scanty 
and mean that an European tomb would here be reckoned a 
palace. For within this small precinct they have not room to lie 
at full length ; so that they sleep in a sitting posture. ' ' 

This exactly describes the stone circles at Spring Hill. It 
would be interesting to know from what locality Venegas 's de- 
scription was derived, and to trace the connection between the 
tribes making the stone circles in Lower and Southern California. 

It is evident that the site in question was abandoned in very 
early times, possibly before the Diegiieiio occupation of the coun- 
try, for no tradition remains to explain these monuments. 

They are described in this connection to account for a rare 
specimen of pottery collected for the American Museum of Nat- 
ural History, an ancient vessel with a base, found on this village 
site. The shape is quite unlike those made by the Diegueiios, 
who so far as known never made ollas with bases. 



170 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

Venegas mentions very little pottery among the Indians of 
the peninsula, crediting only one tribe with the making of pot- 
tery cups. It was at one time imagined that pottery was not 
native to the California Indians. But it is certain that it existed 
in some localities from early times. Tiny pottery vessels were 
used in the Image ceremony among the southernmost Diegueiios 
and allied Indians, hung in a net about the neck of the image, to 
supply food and drink to the spirit of the departed. Domestic 
uten.sils of every shape M-ere made, cups, bowls, jars, and pots. 
A rude decoration was lately made at Manzanita, and some good 
specimens of small decorated pieces have been collected. 

Basketry existed in great perfection in the old days. 

The sacred ceremonial baskets of the Luiseiios have already 
been described. The great granary baskets of the Dieguefios are 
alluded to in the myths. The bestowing of baskets upon the 
vLsiting guests who a.ssisted in performing the various ceremo- 
nials has already been mentioned. Beautiful baskets were burned 
with the other possessions of the dead. 

It is this burning of household belongings which makes the 
collecting of ancient specimens of the sort an almost impossible 
task. Only a few ceremonial objects remain. The things worn 
and used in daily life have been destroyed. 

Weaving was practiced in a rude way in early and later times. 
All of these Indians had rabbit-skin blankets, worn in cold 
weather as a cloak. They were made by twisting the strips of 
the skin into a rope and weaving this as the warp, with strings of 
milkweed or yucca twine for the woof. 

That more elaborate woven goods were manufactured like 
those alluded to by Venegas, girdles, fillets, and so on, is by no 
means impossible, since the burning of household effects would 
account for the non-existence of such at present. 

One fine example of Diegueuo weaving is the woven sack now 
in the National Museum, described and figured in Professor 
JIason's book on Aboriginal American Basketry (PI. 203, p. 
487). It is made of two varieties of milkweed fibre twine woven 
in alternate bands of the white and red. It is twenty-nine inches 
high and was made for the storage of seeds. It was discovered 
hidden in the brush walls of an Indian hut owned bj' two aged 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 171 

brothers. Its manufacture long antedated their memory of the 
past. 

Women's skirts of peeled elder or willow bark were made in 
the simplest way, but a certain amount of weaving was necessary 
at the top to hold the dependent fringes in place about the waist. 
Little girls wore petticoats of reddish milkweed twine netted at 
the top and hanging in fringes. 

Netting was universally practiced, the reddish twine being in 
favor in the mountains near Warner's ranch, where the red-bark 
milkweed grows; and the yucca fibres being used farther south 
and towards the desert. 

Carrying nets, bags of various sorts, prickly pear cleaners 
(loose long pouches closed at each end, in which the fruit was 
gathered and shaken to rid it of its prickles), and so on, were 
manufactured in this way. 

Two sorts of netting .stitches are seen, to correspond with the 
two different regions mentioned above. 

At Mesa Grande and Warner's ranch the common netting 
stitch called the "bowline on a bight" was and is used. In the 
southern mountains, the Manzanita region, the double loop or 
square knot is used.^"" 

The Luiseiio netting stitch has not been investigated. 

Sandals made of yucca fibre very neatly ari-anged or woven 
are stiU worn at Manzanita. 

A little brush for sweeping the metate stone is manufactured 
with great precision, the fibres bound with knotted and twisted 
twine. 

Although coiled basketry is common among Luisenos and 
Diegueiios. the twined weave was known and is still used to a 
certain extent. The chakwhit,^"^ Luiseiio ceremonial basket, also 
used bv men on a staff hung over the .shoulder, was twined, as 



300 The bowline on a bight is made by bringing the shuttle over before 
the stick, up through the loop of the last row, behind both lines of the loop 
and down in front of both lines and through the loose loop of new thread on 
the stick. 

The square knot is made by bringing the shuttle behind the stick, up 
through the loop of the last row, behind both lines of the loop and down 
between both lines of the loop, over the first and under the second line, pull- 
ing backwards and towards the left. 

307 Cha 'kwut, openwork rush basket for gathering acorns, cactus, etc. — S. 



172 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

are the Die^eno basket hats still worn in the Manzanita region. 
Sifting baskets are made in an openwork twined mesh. The 
eheynt.^"'* Luiseiio ceremonial basket used with the coiled tukraul. 
was twined in flat plaque shape, but is not now to be found in 
existence. A sacred basket in jar shape was probably twined. 

The immense granary baskets made in circular form with a 
lid, and placed on high rocks or on a framework of poles to 
secure their contents from the depredations of rodents, are made 
in a rough twining or interlacing. 

Small rudely twined baskets of the same sort were used about 
the house. 

A rare and obsolete form of basket was made by piercing 
splints of symmetrical shape laid close together and stringing 
them on twine. 

Stone arrow-heads were made within the memory of old people 
now living; but the sacred flints set on sticks, paviut, were not 
made, being bom of the Earth-mother. 

The common grinding mortars and metate stones were made. 
Veiy beautiful metates set on three legs, hewn of .solid stone, 
were manufactured at the Mi.ssions ;^''* but the sacred symmetrical 
toloache bowls were born of the Earth-mother as people, and were 
later transformed into their present shape. 

Many rare and interesting objects were collected at the com- 
mand of the early missionaries by their shaman converts and 
burned as a renunciation of heathenism. As many have prob- 
ably perished by degrees during Spanish, ^Mexican, and American 
occupation in Southern California. 

It is not safe to generalize in a negative way from any lack 
of existing specimens. 

Some of the old shaman's .sticks from near the desert show 
rude inlaid work in abalone fragments glued with mescal or 
other juice. Decorations of feathers, of powdered mica, of beads 
or disks of mica, and abalone were used. Hair was woven into 
bracelets and anklets. The eagle-feather skirt was manufactured 
with twined and netted milkweed fibre, sometimes colored red 
with the iron scum of spring's burned into paint. At the end of 



308 Cheyit, openwork rush basket for sifting. — S. 

309 Probably under Mexican influence. — Ed. 



190S] DuBois. — Feligion of the Luiseno Indians. 173 

every lowest loop an eagle feather was inserted, hung by the stiff 
end of the hollow quill bent upon itself. The ends of the strings 
were left long to fasten about the waist. Feather headdresses 
were sometimes made with a buckskin cap to which the bunches 
of feathers were sewn ; more commonly of a headband into which 
the bunches, owl-feathers tied on sticks, were inserted. Painted 
boards of various sorts were used in ceremonies, now mostly lost. 
One bull-roarer still exists. 

We are enumerating the merest fragments of a past that was 
undoubtedly rich in objects of native art and industry. 



174 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 



APPENDIX II. 

NOTES ON THE LUISESOS. 
By A. L. Kroeber. 

The subjoined information regarding- Luisefio beliefs and cus- 
toms was given principally by Felix Calac of Rincon, and Pach- 
ito, an old man of Pauma, in 1904. Paehito was born at the old 
village site by the Pauma cemetery, not far from the present 
rancheria of Pauma, and neither he, his father, nor his grand- 
father, lived at the San Luis Rey mission. 

Besides mourning ceremonies of various kinds — five are men- 
tioned below, — the Luiseiio possessed puberty or initiation rites 
for both boys and girls. Those for girls have been described as 
follows :"" 

Girls' Puberty Ceremony. 

A fire was made in a hole in the ground. In this tule was 
placed. The girls were laid on this on their backs. Two flat 
stones were heated and laid on their abdomens. Several girls, 
generally relatives, were usually put through the ceremony at 
once. They were called as, and the ceremony weghenish. The 
ceremony lasted four or five days. A headdress of a plant called 
engwish"^ was worn by the girls for several months after the cere- 
mony. During this period they could neither eat meat nor fish. 
The duration of this restriction does not seem to have been alto- 
gether fixed. The longer it was observed the better it was 
thought to be for the girls. In some cases it is said to have lasted 
a year. The ceremony was performed in order to make good 
women of the girls. They were talked to by their relatives and 
advised to be good and to give water and food to people. 

The conclu.sion of the girls' period of restrictions at puberty 
was marked by paintings made by them on the smooth surfaces 
of large granite boulders. These paintings, some of which can 



310 Am. Anthr., n. s. VIII, 32, 1906. 
3" Enwish, Echinocystis macrocarpa.- 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligioii of the Luisct'io Indians. 




00<IXXX1><><I><XXIXX> 




176 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

still be seen, especially near the old village sites, consist of geomet- 
rical arrangements of red lines, usually in patterns forming ver- 
tical stripes several feet high. (Fig. 4.) After making her paint- 
ing, a girl was again free to eat meat and salt. The paintings 
were called yunish.^^- 

At one period, apparently at the beginning of the ceremony, 
the girls ate tobacco. Several small balls of this, it is said with- 
out admixture of any other sub-stance, were swallowed by them, 
after which they drank hot water. If they retained the tobacco 
they were said to be good; but if they vomited it, they were re- 
garded as bad. 

Boys' Puberty Ceremony. 

The initiation or pubertj' ceremony for boys, like that for 
girls, included a test of fortitude. Ants, antum, were put into 
a hole in the ground, the boys placed into the hole, and after 
more ants had been thrown on them they were covered over and 
left for a time. Afterwards they were made to run a race. From 
the old village site Taghanashpa. where the Pauma graveyard 
still is, the}' would run around the hill which lies to the northeast, 
and back again. In connection with the ceremony the boys were 
also preached to, and exhorted to be good men. and strong and 
enduring runners. 

The chief initiation of boys, which is said to have followed the 
ant ordeal, was accompanied by the drinking of a decoction of 
jimsonweed roots, Spanish toloache. This plant was called mani. 
The period of stupefaction lasted two or three days, or sometimes 
four days, but this was regarded as too heavy a dose. The boys 
to be initiated were caught in the evening and given the drink in 
the wamgush, the ceremonial enclosure, the same night. Any 
adult man who might happen to be uninitiated on account of 
having lived elsewhere in his youth, would also be made to take 
the drink. The boys were instructed to be good and kind-hearted 
and not to steal. For several months after the ceremony they 
could eat no meat. If they refrained for a year they were 
thought more highly of. After the ceremony the boys were 
called pumal, plural pumalum, which is equivalent in meaning to 

312 Yuninish, the girls' puberty ceremony. — S. Cf. note 34. 



190S] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseilo Indidn.i. 177 

"initiate." The ceremony was called maui paasli, toloache- 
drinking. It was held at irregular intervals, not annually, ac- 
cording as there were boys of age to be initiated. The custom 
is said not to have come from the divinity Wiyot, but from the 
tribes of the coast, who in turn derived it from the San Clemente 
islanders, who were brought to San Luis Key mission. The moun- 
tain Luiseno, after learning the ceremony from the coast people, 
taught it to other tribes. 

The plant was also used as medicine for pain in the body. Its 
power of bringing on visions was well known. 

A part of the initiation ceremonies were connected with a 
ground-painting in the wamgush. The painting was made with 
red and yellow paint, paesul and na\'yot, ashes for white, and 
charcoal for black, on the ground which formed the background 
of the painting. The entire picture, which was circular and rep- 
resented the world, was called torokhoish. (Fig. 5). The circle 
was bisected from north to south and from east to west. At each 
end of the two diameters were represented the bear and the rattle- 
snake. The four radii formed by the intersecting diameters, and 
pointing as it were to the cardinal directions, were called tamaia- 
wot porno, the hands of the world. Parallel to the circle on one 
side, and apparently outside of it, was a representation of moun- 
tains, tota-kolauwot, literally, rock-wood or stone-timber. This 
representation may have consisted of no more than a line. In the 
two quadrants of the circle farthest away from this mountain 
symbol, were placed representations respectively of the raven, and 
of the spider called kuikhingi.sh, or the tarantula. In the center 
of the circle, where the two diameters intersected, was a hole per- 
haps a foot and a half across, called the navel. This is said to 
have had reference to death, to have represented the grave, and 
indicated to the initiates the fate that would overtake them if they 
disobeyed. (The ceremonial feathers of an initiate were buried 
in this hole after his death.) The world is thought to be tied at 
the north, south, east, and west with hair-ropes, yula-wanaut or 
yula-wanal. At each of its four ends is a little hill, khawimal, 
and a rod or cane, nakhat, to which one of the four hair ropes is 
tied. It is not clear whether this is only a cosmological concep- 
tion or was also represented in the painting. The entire toro- 



178 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

khoish paintinjj "filled the waingiish," being apparently about 
twelve or fifteen feet in diamcter.^'^ 




-Sand-painting, torokhoish, representing tamaiawot, the earth. 

1. Hands (or arms) of the world. 

2. Mountain. 

3. Spider. 

4. Raven. 

5. Bear. 

6. Rattlesnake. 

7. Central hole, navel. 



The raven was represented in the torokhoish painting because 
he is thought to see the whole world and to bring good fortune if 
one obeys him, but to cause the death of those who do not obey 
ceremonial instructions or who refuse to enter ceremonies. When 
a raven was seen coming and cawing, "witiak" was said to him. 

After having drunk the jimsonweed, and apparently' toward 
the conclusion of the entire initiation ceremony, the boj's rose and 
stood in a circle around the sand-painting. The initiated men 

313 Compare the native drawing in Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 312, 1906. 



1908] DuBois. — Heligion of the Luiseho Indians. 179 

were with them, and other people looked on from outside. An 
old man talked to the boys. He explained the meaning of the 
picture. He told how the raven would .see everything, and if 
anyone disobeyed or thought lightly of the ceremony, the bear 
and the rattlesnake would kill him. Whether he went north or 
south or east or west he would be killed. In this way the old 
man instructed the boys. 

A short rope made of wish,^" and called wanawut or wanal, 
whereas an ordinary rope is wichit, was laid next to the hole in 
the center of the painting. The boys went to the wanaut and, 
holding their feet together, made three jumps along on it. There- 
upon they spat into the hole, thereby ending the ceremony. 

When one of the initiated, the pumalum, dies, the ground- 
painting is again made. In the hole in the center are buried his 
head-dress, cheyat, and similar articles. At the end of the cere- 
mony the initiates squat in a circle, with their hands stretched 
forward, growl or blow three times, and erase the painting. 

When a boy had a bad dream, the initiates brought baskets 
of seeds and deposited them in the ceremonial enclosure, where 
they were divided, especially among the old people. Thereupon 
the initiates danced for three days. If they failed to do this the 
boy would be bitten by a rattlesnake and would die. Perhaps 
this refers to a boy dreaming while being initiated. 

The ceremonial structure or wamgush, the vanquech of 
Boscana, is an open enclosure of brush. It is only a few feet 
high, so that it can be looked over from the outside. The eastern 
end is left open. At the north and south are small gaps used 
as entrances. A little distance to the east is a smaller brush 
enclosure in which the dancers put on their ceremonial dress. 
When there is dancing in the wamgush as in the tanish or danc- 
ing in connection with the toloache ceremony, the pumalum or 
initiated dancers stand at the western or closed end. A fire is 
in the middle. The singers, old men, sit at the open or ea.st end, 
and behind them are women who sing. The people who are 
looking on are behind these. Half of the dancers proceed from 
the small enclosure around the southern side of the wamgush and 



31-1 Objective case of wicha, given by Mr. Sparkman as Apocynum caniia- 
binuin, while Dr. Barrows, in his Ethno-botany of the Cahuilla Indans, makes 
Cahuilla wish the name of Phragmiles communis. 



ISO University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. 8 

enter at the north, while the other half pass around the northern 
end and enter from the south. 

Mourning Ceremonies. 

Three similar mourning ceremonies, differing in degree of 
elaborateness, were practiced, besides the eagle ceremony and the 
morahash dance. These three were the tuvish, when the clothes 
of the dead were washed ; the djudjamish, when his clothes were 
burned ; and the totinish or tautinish, at which images of the dead 
were burned and property was distributed. 

At the tuvish. the first and simplest of these ceremonies, the 
clothes of the dead person were brought to the fire in the cere- 
monial enclosure and washed or gone over with water, after 
which they were kept to be burned at the djudjamish. There 
was singing throughout the tuvish, and at times men or women 
danced. The men three times emitted a growling or groaning 
sound ending in a blowing, and accompanied by the exclamation 
"wiau." This was done to prevent the dead spirit from being 
about. 

The djudjamish was apparently held somewhat later, also in 
the ceremonial enclosure and at night, and its general course 
seems to have been similar to that of the tuvish. Its purpose 
is described as having been to sever all connection with the dead 
and to cause them to be forgotten. They were told not to remain 
about, but to go to the sky. If their clothes were not burned, 
their ghosts would not depart. At this ceremony the relatives 
of the dead wanted to think of them for the last time. 

The tautinish or totinish was prepared for many months be- 
fore. Women made baskets, which at the ceremony were burned 
or thrown among the spectators. The same was done with other 
propert}' and with money. Figures representing the dead were 
made of tule, dressed in clothing, and burned. Visitors who 
attended this ceremony were given money or property by the 
people of the place. They were paid also for dancing. The 
tautinish ceremony seems to have been held at irregular inter- 
vals. Whenever the chief thought that enough people had died 
to warrant the ceremonj' being held, it was made. A recent 
ceremony at Pala was made for twelve persons. 



1908] DuBois. — Eeligion of the Luiseiio Indians. 181 

A tuvish ceremony that was seen, began in the early part of 
the night. There was a fire in the ceremonial enclosure. About 
midnight some of the people wei-e sitting about inside, but the 
majoi'ity were outside in groups, talking and not paying atten- 
tion to what was being done. A man holding a turtle-shell rattle 
was leading the singing. Near him sat several old men, while 
behind him, on the ground, were several women. At intervals 
between songs, one of the old men would speak, for about a 
minute at a time, in a ceremonial or oratorical style, in short 
detached woi'ds. This speaking resembled the declamation which 
is a characteristic part of Mohave ceremonies, but was less loud 
and the words were not so abruptly uttered. Also as among the 
Mohave on such occasions, the content of these speeches was said 
to have been much the same as the meaning of the words of the 
songs. Both the rattling and the singing were less monotonous 
than under similar circumstances among the Mohave ; the rattling 
especially was somewhat varied. All the songs had words. Once 
an old woman stood up and danced. She held her feet together 
and her knees were somewhat bent, so that her American dress 
reached the ground. In consequence it was impossible to de- 
termine whether she jumped from the ground a little at each step 
of the dance, or whether she only raised herself on her toes. She 
held her hands together in front of her. Most of the time she 
stretched them out from the wrists, stiffening her arms. Her 
eyes were shut. While she danced some of the old men stamped 
one foot on the ground, uttering each time a growl or grunt. 
Usually several women dance together on this occasion, it was 
said. After a few songs the old woman sat down again. The 
principal singer was about southeast of the fire. Several other 
men sat on the opposite side of the fire. Some of these occa- 
sionally accompanied the singing or helped it by exclamations. 
The woman who danced stood east of the fire, not far from the 
singers. Those in the enclosure smoked freely, and children and 
dogs ran about it. The ceremony is said to have continued until 
about two in the morning. 

The songs sung on occasions such as this, in part name ani- 
mals, and at least at times contain references to m^-ths. It was 
not learned whether or not they form a connected narrative 



182 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethu. [Vol. 8 

series. The owl is simsr of bccau.se the owl's call is a sign that 
some one will die. The words of the song mention the bird's call 
and express regret. Other songs mention the coyote, a coyote's 
cry near a house being an omen of death to one of the inmates. 
The words of one song are said to be : "I am sorrj% for we must 
all die." Many songs are about Wiyot, especially his death. 
Such matters as his foretelling of the time when he would die, 
and his counting or naming the months until his death, are typi- 
cal of the subjects of the songs. 

In recent years the Indians of Piehanga had given up the 
mourning ceremonies. A woman of high rank, of a chief's fam- 
ily, had died. Thou a person dreamed of Coyote. Coyote said 
to him: "Why do you not hold the djudjamish any longer? It 
Ls not good not to have it. I do not like it so." Then this per- 
son told the chief of his dream. He said to him: "Have you 
heard the coyote howling at night? That was the dead woman. 
She told me that she wanted us to burn the clothes of the dead 
again." This dream caused the resumption of the ceremony. 

The eagle ceremony is a mourning ceremony for a chief. It 
is called ashwut nuiknash, eagle killing. Either an eagle or a 
condor is used. The people of the coast also use bald eagles and 
chicken hawks. The birds are taken when young from their nests 
in the canyons. The eagles of certain places belong to certain 
villages. Thus the Potrero people owned the eagles at Pachori- 
vo. When caught, an eagle is raised by the chief. At the eagle- 
ceremony dancing is made during the night around a fire. IMen 
take turns holding the eagle. As each mau holds it he presses it, 
breaking an additional bone. At the cry, "Hu! Hu!" the dan- 
cer who is carrying the eagle gives it to another, who then dances 
with it until the cry is heard again. Toward morning the eagle 
is finally killed by a certain pressure on the heart. The relatives 
of the dead chief for whom the ceremony is made then cry. A 
blanket is laid down and the eagle put on this. The chief's rela- 
tives thereupon bring property and money, and lay them with 
the eagle, which is finally covered with a large basket. People 
whose relatives have died place the clothing and property of 
these on the blanket with the eagle. In return the dead chief's 
successor, who is holding the ceremony, seems to give these peo- 



190S] DuBois. — religion of the LiUseno Indians. 183 

pie an equivaleut in property. The entire property placed with 
the eagle 's body is given by the chief making the ceremony to the 
chief of another village, who divides it among his own people. 
This chief also takes the eagle, which he burns. The entire cere- 
mony seems to be made by a son or grandson or relative, in other 
words the successor, of the chief in whose honor it is held, and 
whom the eagle represents or "calls." 

A dance called morahash was performed by a single dancer 
in the M'amgush. It would be made for a dead chief by his son, 
some years after his death. The young chief would hire the man 
who danced for him. All chiefs had such dancers; they did not 
dance themselves. The women sang, the men "growled" or 
blew, and the singer shook a turtle-shell rattle. The songs were 
descriptive of the dancing. The dancer was called totawish ; his 
performance is evidently what is called the "tatahuila" dance 
by the present-day Diegueiio, who do not acknowledge this word 
as their own. The dancer wore a skirt of eagle feathers, called 
balat; eheyat, a head-dress of a bunch of owl, crow, or raven 
feathers, fastened to the hair by a pin or stick; piwish, ropes of 
owl feathers, wound around the head or hung around the neck ; 
and apuma, a head-dress of long eagle-feathers worn upright on 
the head. 

This morahash dance is said to have been among the Luiseiio 
before the toloache-ceremony. It is thought to go back to the 
time when the people were still in the north. It is not from 
Wiyot, for Wiyot did not give dances, but the people made them 
after his death. The morahash was first made over his a.shes. 

Customs and Beliefs. 

The medicine man is called pula. He derives his power from 
dreaming. He doe.s not dream of Wiyot. nor derive his power 
from him, but dreams of a rock, a mountain, a person, or some- 
thing similar. Shamans were men, not women. 

The shamans have songs, which they receive from the object 
of their dream, and which they sing to themselves. It is not 
known whether they also sing them while doctoring. Their stone 
pipes seem to be regarded as fetishes. At least shamans fre- 
quently speak to their pipes. They also blow tobacco smoke on 



184 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol. S 

the sick person. Sometimes they sleep near the patient, waiting 
for a dream in which their guardian spirit tells them how to pro- 
ceed. The main reliance seems to be on sucking. Water is also 
spurted or blown on the patient. 

When a man killed a deer, or rabbits, he brought them to the 
wamgush. Then the people ate the meat, but he did not partake 
of it. If he should eat of the meat of animals he himself had 
killed, even only very little, he would not be able to kill others. 
However if he confessed to the people that he had taken some 
of the meat, he would again be able to hunt successfully. 

The dead went to the sky. 

A menstruating woman did not mix with other people. She 
could not cook for them. She herself ate neither meat nor fish. 
She slept by herself, outside the house. 

After the birth of a child both the mother and the father re- 
mained quiet. They did not cook or work. They remained lying 
down for twenty, thirty, or forty daj's. They used medicine of 
a plant called hulvul,^''^ boiled in water. They ate no meat. All 
this was done for the health of the child. When the child's navel 
string was cut, it was tied over the navel. After the cord fell 
off, it was buried. 

Women were tattooed on the chin, with a vertical line down 
the forehead, and with a small cii'cle on each cheek. On their 
wrists there were bands of tattooing and across the breast a 
curved band or line from which lines extended downward. IVIen 
tattooed less than women. 

The following animals are said not to have been eaten : the 
dog, bear, coyote, lizard, frog, turtle, eagle, buzzard, and raven. 

At marriage property was given to the parents of the bride. 
It is not certain whether this took the form of a purchase pay- 
ment or merely of a customary gift. The informants questioned 
knew of no restrictions on communication between parents-in-law 
and children-in-law. 

Houses and Implements. 

The house consisted of a framework of posts, rafters, and 

poles, with a thatching of shuikawat"" plants. The thatching was 

31S Ilulval, Artemisia catifornica. — S. 
3>» Croton calif ornicum. — S. 



1908] DiiBois. — Feligioii of the LuiseJio Indiniis. 185 

then thickly covered with soil. The interior of the house was 
excavated perhaps two feet. Tule houses were built by the moun- 
tain Luisefio while at San Luis Eey mission. 

The sweat-house was similar but smaller. Two forked po.sts 
were erected and connected by a log, on which poles were rested 
from both sides. A thatching of plants was covered with mud, 
and over this was put dry soil. The door was on one of the long 
sides. The sweat-house was not used for dancing, all such func- 
tions occurring in the wamgush enclosure. The sweat-house was 
regularly used for sweating in the evening, and sometimes in the 
morning also. After sweating in the evening, men slept in the 
house, not in the sweat-house. The heat in the sweat-house was 
produced directly by a fire, not by steam. 

The mortars of the Luiseno are generally large boulders 
weighing perhaps two hundred pounds or more. The cavity is 
conical and pointed rather than rounded. The pestles are usually 
a foot or more long and rather unshaped. One or two sides are 
generally flat, as in Yokuts pestles, and the butt end, which is 
wider than it is thick, has a diameter of about half the length of 
the pestle. On the whole the pestles seem to be boulders or slabs 
which are little worked except at the rather pointed pounding 
end. The most common material is granite. A flat metate, malal, 
was also used. 

Head-bands of human hair, called yukish,-"' were made from 
hair cut off in mourning, and were worn by old men in dancing. 

Nothing corresponding to a drum is said to have been used 
in any ceremonies. Whistles, bakhal, of cane or reed, huikish,^'* 
and asphalt, shanat, were used at the boys ' initiation, at the time 
when the boys were buried and covered with ants. The pumalura 
or initiated men danced in a circle on this occasion, blowing these 
whistles and singing in slow broken syllables. The chief musical 
instriiment in ceremonies was the rattle. This was made of a 
turtle-shell, paayat, which often contained cherry-seeds. String 
was wound around the shell until the head and leg openings were 
covered. A stick was put through the top and bottom of the 
shell until it projected a few inches above and about a foot below. 

317 Yula, hair ; yukut, hairy ; yutush, the scalp, when tletauhed. — S. 

318 Elymus condensatus. — S. 



186 Vniversity of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol.8 

Such rattles were used in the singing in the mourning ceremonies. 
They were also used for the dancing in connection with the girls ' 
puberty ceremony. At this ceremony women danced, while men, 
bending their bodies forward, sang and rattled, stamping one 
foot. 

Money, auvirat or khenkhat, was made from shells called 
si'wal, probably a clam; khapshut, almeja; and shauvish, a large 
univalve of which the columella was used. The clam shells were 
made into small disks which were perforated and strung. The 
strings were measured around the circumference of the hand, 
much as by the Yokuts, except that the measurement seems to 
have been a little scantier. The end of the string was held be- 
tween the tips of two fingers. The string was then passed entirely 
around the edge of the hand back to its beginning, and continued 
a second time down one side of the hand to the wrist. This 
measure, approximately one and a half times the circuit of the 
hand and fingers, was half the unit measure, which was called 
ponko. This full measure was also determined by taking the end 
of the string between two finger tiiis, and then passing around the 
elbow and back to the finger tips. 



PLATES. 

Plate 16 (referred to on page 80 as PI. 1). Fig. 1. — Medicine-man smok- 
ing stone pipe preparatory to swallowing wooden "sword." Fig. 2. — Wedi- 
clne-man swallowing wooden ' ' sword ' ' about an inch wide and fourteen 
inches long. 

Plate 17 (referred to on page 88 as PI. 2). Fig. 1. — A Diegueiio woman 
sitting by a storage olla. Fig. 2. — Model of sand-painting for girls' cere- 
mony. 

Plate 18 (referred to on page 98 as PI. 3). Feather headband and skirt 
of string and feathers. 

Plate 19 (referred to on pages 158, 1.59, as PI. 4). Fig. 1. — The ancestral 
home of Lucario Cuevish. Fig. 2. — A painted rock, once a woman, on which 
two sacred stones are poised. 



ERRATUM. 

Page 79, lines 26 and 27, for "piavala" and "piyevala" read pievala. 



•^ 



UMIV, CAL. PUBL. AM, ARCH, k BTHN, VOL, 



[DUBOIS] PLATE 17 





FIi;. -. JIUDEL (IF SAND-PAINTI.\(i Fdll lUKL.s' lEUEMOXy. 



UMIV^ CAL, PUHL AM. ARCH, & ETHM, VOL 8 



[DUBOIS] PLATE 1- 




Kld. 1.- 'Illl': AXI'KSTKM. IIdMI': (IF MTAKIO ITEVISH. 




-A I'AIXTKIl l:orK. (INCE A WllMAX. UN WllH'Il 'I'Wi 
SACKEO STONES AllE PdlsED. 



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